vântura

Forms

vântura (third-person singular present vântură, past participle vânturat, third-person subjunctive vânture) 1st conjugation^[1] The present is vântur; older and regional speech also has vânturez, and some regions vântor or a fourth-conjugation vânturi.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ventulō (“to winnow”), a popular form of Latin ventilō (“to fan, to winnow”).^[2][3][1][4] Tiktin, Pascu, Candrea and Graur take it from the Vulgar Latin form;^[5] Ciorănescu also allows a Romanian formation on vânt, or the classical verb, as Diez proposed.^[5] The Latin verb is formed on ventulus (“slight wind”), a diminutive of ventus (“wind”).^[1]

It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian vintur.^[6][5][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian ventolare and the Logudorese form Sardinian bentulare.^[7][1] Romanian later borrowed the Latin verb as ventila.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the Epistle of James (1:6).^[4][3] The farming sense is clear in Varlaam's homilies: „o lopată de vânturat ce aleage grâul din pleave” “a winnowing shovel that separates the wheat from the chaff”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The verb first means to toss grain in the air so that the wind blows the chaff away, and later also to clean it with a winnowing machine.^[2][3] From there it took on the senses of scattering and dispersing, of pouring a liquid from one vessel into another to cool or mix it, and of moving something to and fro, shaking or stirring it; figuratively it is to stir up or trouble.^[8][2] Tiktin quotes Delavrancea for its use of gossip: women who sift a person's troubles “through the sieve” are said to vântura them.^[4] It also came to mean to roam the world, which gave the compound vântură-lume “wanderer, adventurer”.^[8][5] Older and regional speech uses it for airing a room, and folk poetry for the wind gently touching a face.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1563-1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[4][3]
• c. 1660-1670 – vînturat in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic развѣваемъ “blown about”.^[9]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible, among other places in Isaiah.^[10]
• 1746 – of winnowing, in a text quoted by Tiktin and the DLR: „nici vânt îi trebui să vânture” “nor did she need wind to winnow”.^[4][2]
• 1809 – of maize that must be well winnowed, in a document.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To winnow: to toss grain from a small height, or pass it through a machine, so that the wind carries off the chaff.^[8][3][1]
2. (figurative) To scatter, disperse, blow away.^[8]
3. To pour a liquid repeatedly from one vessel into another, to cool or mix it.^[8][2]
4. To move to and fro, to shake or stir;^[8][1] (figurative) to trouble, agitate.^[8][1]
5. (figurative) To spread or tell about, to comment on words or deeds.^[8]
6. (figurative) To roam, wander about.^[8][1]
7. (rare) Of the wind: to blow over something.^[8][2]

Word family

• vânturătoare
• vânturător
• vântură-lume

Related words

• vânt
• ventila
• Aromanian vintur

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vîntura
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1436
4. ^ 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. vântura
5. ^ a b c d 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. vînt
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1111
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9207
8. ^ 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. 1188
9. ^ 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. vînturat
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Isaia 41:16