tuși

Forms

• tuși (third-person singular present tușește, past participle tușit), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tussiō (“to cough”), which is formed on tussis (“cough”), the source of Romanian tuse.^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} Pușcariu and the REW give the same etymon.^[2][7] The verb survives south of the Danube as Aromanian tushescu, and the Romance languages have Italian tossire, Portuguese tussir, Catalan tossir, Old French toussir and Spanish toser.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Romanian translation of Herodotus of 1645: „Tușea mai tare decât îi era obiceiul” “he coughed harder than was his habit”.^[3][5] MDA2 cites the Italian–Romanian manuscript of Göttingen, which it dates by its edition of 1935.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The verb has kept the Latin sense;^[2][5] Ciorănescu notes that it is used in every region.^[2][5] It is also used of a deliberate cough to clear the throat or to draw someone's attention, a sense the regional dictionaries record.^[5][9] Regionally a tuși măgărește or a tuși sec means to have whooping cough.^[8][5]

Writers extended it to things: a launch that coughs out a puff of smoke, or dry walnuts that cough.^[10][5]

Timeline

• 1645 – tușea “he coughed” in the Romanian Herodotus.^[3][5]
• 1814 – „Răsuflă greu, tușește” “he breathes heavily, he coughs” in a calendar.^[5]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To cough: to breathe in briefly and force air out of the lungs suddenly and noisily, usually as a symptom of illness.^[4][8][1]
2. (transitive, figurative) To cough up, expectorate; to spit out.^[8][10]
3. (regional) To signal to someone by coughing.^[9][8]

Word family

• tușit
• tușitură

Related words

• tuse
• Latin tussis

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. tuse
3. ^ 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. tuși
4. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 1156
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. tuși
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9015
8. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1309
9. ^ a b Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. tuși
10. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 528