tunde

Forms

tunde (present tund, past participle tuns, third-person subjunctive tundă) 3rd conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *tondō (“to shear”), a third-conjugation form that replaced Classical tondeō.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *tend- (“to split, cut off”).^[1]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian tundu and Megleno-Romanian tund.^[2][6][7] Its Romance cognates include Italian tondere, French tondre, Catalan tondre and Spanish tundir.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 21:24), in the story of the vow of shaving the head.^[3] MDA2 dates it to Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581, where a man's hair and beard are to be shorn: „să-i fie tuns ... părul și barba”.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The verb is used of cutting hair, shearing sheep and trimming hedges.^[3] In church language it means to take the monastic tonsure: Moxa's chronicle has „elu-și tunse părul ... și prinse viiață călugărească” “he cut his hair ... and took up the monastic life”.^[3] The Pravila of Govora says that whoever is tonsured renounces the world.^[3]

In Wallachia a tunde stupii is to cut the honeycombs from the hives.^[3][4] The colloquial a o tunde “to run away” has not been explained;^[2] Ciorănescu compares rade and șterge, which have the same sense in similar phrases.^[2] It is also known in Maramureș.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 21:24), the first record.^[3]
• 1581 – tuns “shorn” in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[4][5]
• 1645 – tunde părul “cuts his hair” in a translation of Herodotus.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To cut someone's (or one's own) hair, beard or moustache.^[10][4][1]
2. (transitive) To shear the wool or hair of an animal.^[10]
3. (transitive) To trim evenly: grass, leaves, branches, the pile of a fabric.^[10][4]
4. (Orthodox church) To cut a man's hair before he becomes a monk, to tonsure; by extension, to make a monk.^[10][4]
5. (colloquial) a o tunde: to run off, to make oneself scarce.^[10][4]
6. (colloquial) To charge someone a large sum for a service; to fleece.^[4]

Word family

• tuns
• tunsoare
• tunsură
• tundere

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. tunde
3. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. tunde
4. ^ 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, 1299
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. tunde
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1055
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 303
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8779
9. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. tunde
10. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1153