ticălos

Forms

ticălos m or n (feminine singular ticăloasă, masculine plural ticăloși, feminine/neuter plural ticăloase)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian ticală (“misery, suffering”) + -os.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DEX calls the old noun ticală of unknown origin.^[2] MDA2 leaves it unexplained and compares the old verb ticăi (“to suffer”),^[3] from which Tiktin and Scriban derive it.^[6][7] Tiktin calls a connection of the verb with Church Slavonic doubtful.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581, in the old sense “wretched, pitiable”: a ruler of the people comes, „nu ticălos, nici uitat” “neither wretched nor forgotten”, but one of the glorious.^[4][3][5] The noun ticală is older, from a 1564 print of Coresi.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

The word first described a person or a life in a pitiable state, materially or morally: in a calendar of 1847 a donkey complains „Așa ticăloasă viață să duc eu?” “must I lead such a wretched life?”.^[5][4] Already in the old texts it was also used of moral baseness, as of the „ticăloșii călugări” “the wicked monks” who plotted to seize a youth's wealth.^[5] Scriban noted that the old sense was “unhappy, lamentable” and the current one “sinful, base, contemptible”.^[7] DEX now gives the pejorative sense first and labels the pitiable one old, and DLRLC calls it rare.^[2][9] The old sense lives on in regional speech: a glossary of Argeș glosses it “troubled, pitiable”.^[10] The Lexicon of Buda (1825) also gives the sense “weak, frail”.^[11]

Timeline

• 1564 – ticală “misery” in Coresi.^[3][6]
• 1581 – ticălos in Coresi's Carte de învățătură, the first record.^[3][5]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible, as in Revelation 3:17.^[13]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda glosses it “miserable” and “weak, frail”.^[11]
• 1847 – „ticăloasă viață” “a wretched life” in a calendar text.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a person, given to contemptible deeds: base, vile, wicked.^[2][3][1]
2. Of acts and behaviour, despicable.^[3]
3. (dated) In a pitiable state, wretched, poor, unfortunate.^[2][3]

Noun

1. A scoundrel, a person who does contemptible things.^[2][9]
2. (dated) A wretch, a person to be pitied.^[2]

Word family

• ticăloșie

Related words

• ticală
• ticăi

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1124
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1214
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. ticălos
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. ticălós
6. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. ticálă
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1316
8. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. ticăí 1
9. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 422
10. ^ Constantinescu, Grigore; Constantinescu, Eugenia (2014), Glosar. Arealul etnocultural Argeș-Muscel, p. 110
11. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 707
12. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. ticălos
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Apocalipsis 3:17