trifoi

Forms

trifoi n (plural trifoiuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin trifolium (“clover”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} from tri- and folium (“leaf”), a calque of Ancient Greek τρίφυλλον (tríphullon).^[1][8] It survives in Aromanian as trifolj, and has cognates in Italian trifoglio, Occitan trefuelh, Old French trefueil and Albanian tërfoj.^[5][9][10]

Ciorănescu notes that its inheritance was once doubted, but that the Aromanian and Albanian forms seem to prove it.^[5] Candrea and Densusianu thought the regular outcome would have been ⟨trăfoi⟩, kept in the Banat as ⟨tărfoi⟩, and explained the ⟨i⟩ by learned botanical usage or by Modern Greek τριφύλλι (trifýlli);^[11] Pascu thought of trei.^[11][5] Ciorănescu finds neither contamination necessary.^[5] The word is a doublet of treflă, a loan from French trèfle.^[5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1703.^[4] Klein's dictionary of 1801 has Trifóiu “Trifolium”.^[13] MDA2 cites only Borza's ethnobotanical dictionary (1968) for it.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word names clover and several other leguminous plants with leaves of three leaflets, many of them fodder crops: red clover (trifoi roșu), white clover (trifoi alb), the yellow clover and the hare's-foot clover.^[2][3][4] Folk compounds stretch the name to bogbean (trifoi de baltă, trifoi amar), black medick (trifoi mărunt), sweet clover (trifoi mare) and lucerne (trifoi unguresc).^[4][14] Regional variants include tărfoi, târfoi and trăfoi.^[3][5] Ruthenian borrowed it as tryfoi.^[5]

Timeline

• 1703 – the first record.^[4]
• 1801 – Trifóiu in Klein's dictionary.^[13]
• 1825 – trifoios, a kind of sorrel, in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[11]
• 1968 – Borza's ethnobotanical dictionary, MDA2's first record.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. clover: any of several leguminous plants (genus Trifolium) with leaves of three leaflets and flowers in round heads, some grown as fodder.^[2][3]
2. A variety of clover.^[2]

Word family

• trifoiște
• trifoiaș
• trifoios

Related words

• treflă
• foaie
• trei
• Aromanian trifolj

Usage notes

Wiktionary gives it as a neuter noun with the plural trifoiuri;^[1] DEX 2009 also treats the plant name as masculine.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1147
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1279
4. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. trifoi
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. trifoi
6. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 164
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8899
8. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 172
10. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
12. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
13. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 460
14. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 497