vânăt

Forms

vânăt m or n (feminine singular vânătă, masculine plural vineți, feminine/neuter plural vinete)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin venetus (“sea-blue, bluish”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1][7]} The Latin adjective first named the colour of the Blue faction of the circus, and is derived from Venetī (“the Veneti”).^[8][1] Under this Latin word the REW lists only the Romanian one.^[7] Wiktionary pairs it with the learned doublet venet.^[1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian vinit, Megleno-Romanian vinăt and Istro-Romanian viret.^{[2][9][10][11][12]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a Wallachian document of 1617.^[5] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use vînăt and vînătă for Slavonic forms of син- “blue”, from about 1660.^[13] MDA2 dates it from the Bucharest Bible of 1688, which uses it for the blue cloth of the Tabernacle: „Vei face lor chiotori vinete” “you shall make loops of blue for them”.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense is a dark blue with violet tints, and also a leaden, bluish grey.^[4][3][2] From the colour of skin that is bruised or frozen came the sense “livid, black and blue”.^[5][4] Of horses' coats and birds' feathers it means a blue-tinged grey.^[2][4]

The feminine used as a noun, vânătă, names the aubergine, short for pătlăgea vânătă.^[4] Regional phrases name a dark grape variety and a bluish clay used to whitewash houses.^[3] Romanian derivatives include vânătaie “bruise”, vinețiu “bluish” and învineți “to turn blue”.^[2]

Timeline

• 1617 – a Wallachian document, the first record.^[5]
• c. 1660 – vînăt and vînătă in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – vinete “blue” in the Bucharest Bible.^[3][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. dark blue with violet tints; leaden, darkened: Cerul era vânăt înainte de furtună. “The sky was dark blue before the storm.”^[4][3][1]
2. (of people or parts of the body) livid, bruised, pale: buze vinete de frig “lips blue with cold”.^[4][5]
3. (of feathers or animals' coats) Bluish grey.^[4][2]

Noun

1. (neuter) The colour dark blue.^[4]
2. (feminine, vânătă) The aubergine, eggplant.^[4]

Word family

• vinețea
• vinețică
• vânătă
• vânătaie
• vinețiu
• învineți

Related words

• venet
• Aromanian vinit

Usage notes

The plural forms keep the older vowel: masculine vineți, feminine and neuter vinete.^[1][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. vânăt
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1433
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vânăt
6. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vânăt
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9198
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1111
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, 185
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 327
12. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 382
13. ^ 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. vînăt