vână

Forms

vână f (plural vine)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vēna (“blood vessel”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian vinã, Megleno-Romanian vină and Istro-Romanian virę.^[2][6][7] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian vaina, Italian vena, Catalan vena, Spanish vena, French veine and Portuguese veia.^[2][8] The Latin word has no agreed etymology; de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *ues-no- (“of blood”) and discusses roots meaning “to blow” or “to convey”.^[9]

Romanian later borrowed venă, a doublet of the same Latin word, and the adjective venos came from French veineux.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură of 1581, which asks where the bones and „vinele sîngelui” “the veins of blood” come from.^[4][3] Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649 glosses a Slavonic word for “veins, sinews” with vinele.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is the blood vessel, any vein or, popularly, any blood vessel at all, as in Miron Costin, who tells of blood let from the veins.^[3][5] Older medical language had phrases for particular veins: vâna poartă “portal vein” and vână cavă “vena cava”; these are now called venă.^[4] Many idioms use the plural: a-i îngheța sângele în vine “one's blood freezes in the veins”, of great fright.^[5][4]

In popular speech the word also covers sinews, tendons and muscle, and so strength: tare de vână “strong, vigorous”, slab de vână “feeble”; a vână de bou, the neck ligament of an ox, is a whip, and by extension a rubber truncheon.^[5][2] From the calf muscle comes the sense “lower leg”, kept in pe vine “squatting”.^[5][1] The image of a thin line running through a mass gives “vein of ore, lode”, “underground water course”, “stream of water” and the veins of a leaf.^[5][2]

Timeline

• 1581 – vinele sîngelui “the veins of blood” in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[4][3]
• 1649 – vinele in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – vinele many times in the Bucharest Bible, for instance in Genesis 49:6.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A vein;^[5][4][1] (colloquial) any blood vessel; venă: I s-a umflat o vână la tâmplă.^[5][4][1]
2. (popular) A muscle fibre, sinew or tendon; muscle, and hence physical strength: tare de vână “strong”.^[5][1]
3. (popular, usually plural) The lower leg, the calf: pe vine “squatting”.^[5][1]
4. A lode or seam of ore between other layers of rock; an underground water course.^[5][2]
5. A streak or thin stream of liquid: vâna apei “the current of the water”.^[5]
6. (botany) A vein of a leaf; each of the branches of a tree's root.^[5]

Word family

• vânos

Related words

• venă
• Aromanian vinã
• Latin vena

Usage notes

The plural is vine; old and regional texts also have vini and, rarely, vene.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. vînă
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vînă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1433
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1187
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1110
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 327
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9185
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b 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. vinele
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 49:6