untură

Forms

untură f (plural unturi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin unctūra (“anointing”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} The Latin noun is formed on ungō (“to anoint”) with the suffix -ūra.^[7] It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian umturã and Megleno-Romanian untură.^[2][8][9] The Romance cognates include Sardinian untura, Old French ointure, Occitan onchura, and Catalan untura, Spanish untura and Portuguese untura.^[6][2] Ciorănescu also compares Albanian yndyrë, which Wiktionary takes from the same Latin word.^[2][1]

In Latin the word meant the act of anointing, especially of the dead.^[7] Pascu notes this Latin sense, while the Romanian and Aromanian words name the fat itself.^[10] Ciorănescu relates it to unge and unt.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Voroneț (c. 1551–1558), in Psalm 151.^[11] Coresi's psalter of 1570 has it in Psalm 62: „De gras și untură împlu-se sufletul mieu” “my soul is filled with fatness and fat”.^[12][3] In Psalm 108 the Psaltirea Scheiană writes „Pelița me schimbă-se dereptu untura” “my skin changed for lack of fat”, where the Slavonic has “oil”.^[3][5] MDA2 gives the Psaltirea Scheiană as its first record.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts and in popular speech the word names the fatty tissue under the skin of animals, and in Dosoftei it also glosses oil used for anointing.^[4][3] The modern standard sense is fat rendered from animal tissue and used in cooking, medicine and industry.^[13] An old anatomical phrase, untura încheieturilor “the grease of the joints”, meant the synovial fluid.^[5][4] The fish oil taken against rickets, cod-liver oil, is untură de pește.^[13]

In Transylvania it is the leaf fat of the pig, elsewhere bacon fat.^[13][4] Stati records untură for bacon as a regionalism of Moldova.^[14] Folk medicine used the fat of hares, snakes and other animals, as Pamfile records.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1551–1558 – untura in the Psaltirea Voroneț, the first record.^[11]
• 1570 – untură in Coresi's psalter.^[12]
• c. 1573–1578 – the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4][3]
• 1604 – the plural unturi in a document.^[5]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic тукъ “fat” with it.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. lard, fat: animal fat melted down and used in cooking, medicine and industry.^[13][1]
2. untură de pește: cod-liver oil, the oil from the liver of fish of the cod family, rich in vitamins A and D.^[13]
3. (regional) The leaf fat of the pig.^[13][4]
4. (old and popular) The fatty tissue under the skin of animals.^[4][5]
5. (regional) bacon fat.^[4][14]

Word family

• unturos

Related words

• unge
• unt
• Aromanian umturã

Usage notes

A regional saying, a bizui untura pe câine “to trust the dog with the lard”, means to leave something in the care of the person most likely to waste it.^[4] Îi curge untura pe nas “the fat runs out of his nose” is said ironically of a very fat person.^[5]

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. untură
3. ^ 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. untură
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1380
5. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. untură
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9058
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1083
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
10. ^ 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, 47
11. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 151:4
12. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 62:6
13. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1173
14. ^ a b Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 329
15. ^ 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. untură