umflăciune

Forms

umflăciune f (plural umflăciuni)^[1] The older form înflăciune (also printed îmflăciune) occurs in Cantemir: „adevărata înflăciune scornindu-să supt piielea Ursului” “the real swelling rising under the Bear's skin”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian umfla + -ăciune, from the verb “to swell”.^[3][4][2] CADE derived it instead from Latin īnflātiō (“swelling”), and Wiktionary gives that as a possibility, which would make it a doublet of inflație.^[5][1] The Latin noun, formed from īnflō (“to blow into, inflate”), gave words for “swelling” in other Romance languages: Italian enfiagione, Spanish hinchazón and Portuguese inchação.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică (1705), in the form înflăciune, for a swelling caused by bee stings under the Bear's skin.^[2][4][3]

Semantic evolution

The word kept the one sense “swelling”, chiefly a swelling of the body.^[3] The newspaper Albina românească wrote in 1829 of someone who died after a swelling, and a folk text quoted by DLR describes one that ripens and bleeds.^[3] It is now archaic and regional, replaced by umflătură.^[3][4][1]

Timeline

• 1705 – înflăciune in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[2][4]
• 1829 – umflăciune in Albina românească.^[3]
• 1931 – CADE records it with the obsolete înflăciune.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic, regional) A swelling.^[4][3][1]

Related words

• umfla
• umflătură
• inflație
• Latin īnflātiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. umflăciune
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. umflăciune
4. ^ 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, 1369
5. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. umflăciune