vâltoare

Forms

vâltoare f (plural vâltori)^[1] The 1588 document has both ultoare and vultoare: „Sadna cu 4 mori și cu doo pio și cu o vultoare” “Sadna, with four mills, two fulling mills and a vultoare”.^[2] Vultoare is still the popular variant: Caragiale writes „De câte ori era să pier în vultoare” “how many times I nearly perished in a whirlpool”.^[3][4] MDA2 also lists the regional variants holtoare, hulboare, hultoare, voltoare and vuutoare.^[5]

Etymology

It is usually derived as inherited from Vulgar Latin *voltoria, a noun formed on *voltus, the popular participle that replaced Latin volūtus, past participle of volvō (“to roll, to whirl”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Pușcariu put forward this etymon in his 1905 dictionary (article 904).^[6]

Tiktin and Candrea also compared Vulgar Latin *volutulō (“to roll about”), the source of Italian voltolare; the REW lists the related verb vâltura “to whirl” under that etymon.^[6][7] Ciorănescu finds both Latin explanations improbable and takes the word as an expressive formation, probably with dissimilation.^[6] Wiktionary compares Aromanian vãltoari.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a document of 1588 that lists villages with their mills, fulling mills and an ultoare or vultoare, a basin or installation where cloth was beaten and washed by falling water.^[2][3][5] The sense “whirlpool” is in Klein's dictionary of 1801, which glosses it with Latin vortex.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word names the deep place in a river where the water whirls, and the eddy itself;^[2][5] Tiktin's first sense is the whirlpool, and the technical sense of a fulling basin is the one the oldest document shows.^[2][5] In Transylvania and Maramureș a vâltoare is still a cone-shaped wooden tub under a mountain stream, where a strong whirling current washes and felts blankets, rugs and woollen cloth.^[9][10][6]

From the river the word passed to a storm or gale, and figuratively to any turmoil: a tumult of the crowd, an anxious mind, the whirl of a dissolute life.^[5][4][2] MDA2 also records rare and regional senses: a fish pond, a mill race, a beam for the warp, a smoke hole, and in Maramureș a dance performed by young men at Easter, with its tune.^[5]

Timeline

• 1588 – ultoare, vultoare “fulling basin” in a document listing mills, the first record.^[2][5][3]
• c. 1678-1683 – vultoare in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic вирь “whirlpool”.^[11]
• 1801 – vâltoare “whirlpool” in Klein's dictionary.^[8]
• 1825 – voltoare “whirlpool” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deep place in a river bed where the water forms whirlpools; the eddy formed there.^[4][5][1]
2. (regional) A storm, a gale.^[4][5]
3. (figurative) Commotion, tumult; an agitated state of mind or of a crowd: în vâltoarea luptei “in the thick of the fight”.^[4][5][13]
4. (regional) A basin or wooden tub under a fall of water, in which cloth and rugs are washed and fulled.^[5][9][6]

Word family

• vâltura

Related words

• Aromanian vãltoari

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. vâltoare
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vîltoare
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1187
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1431
6. ^ 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. vîltoare
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9441
8. ^ 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. 472
9. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. vâltoare
10. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. vâltoáre
11. ^ 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. vultoare
12. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 761
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. vâltoare