vagabond

Forms

vagabond m (plural vagabonzi)^[1] A colloquial form is bagabont: „Bagabontule, să-mi lipsești din casă!” “Get out of my house, you tramp!” (Nădejde).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French vagabond, with Latin vagābundus (“wandering”) as a second model, and Italian has the same word, vagabondo.^[4][5][6] Tiktin and Wiktionary give only the French word, while MDA2 and the DLR list Latin, French and Italian as sources.^[2][1][7][8] Older forms spelled with ⟨u⟩, ⟨vagabund⟩, follow the Latin.^[7][9]

The Latin adjective is formed on vagor (“to wander”) with the suffix -bundus.^[3][10][1] French borrowed it in 1382, and Italian has it from the 14th century.^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Instrucții of Emperor Joseph II, printed at Sibiu in 1787.^[7][2] In Șincai's chronicle wandering schismatic monks are called vagabunzi, people moving from place to place without a home.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From a person wandering without a fixed home, the word moved to the sense of an idle man of no account, close to haimana and derbedeu.^[8][13] The adjective is used of animals, above all of stray dogs (câini vagabonzi), and figuratively of an unsteady imagination or inspiration.^[7][14]

Costinescu in 1870 gives both vagabondŭ and vagabundŭ and adds the sense of people with neither trade nor home.^[9] Slang has many synonyms of its own, such as boschetar.^[15]

Timeline

• 1787 – the first record, in the Instrucții printed at Sibiu.^[7][2]
• 1836 – vagabonzi of the wandering Neapolitan poets, in a Transylvanian periodical.^[8]
• 1870 – Costinescu lists the forms vagabondŭ and vagabundŭ.^[9]
• 1929 – Șăineanu records the figurative imaginațiune vagabondă “wandering imagination”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tramp, vagrant: a person without a fixed home, steady work or means, who lives by expedients.^[4][7]
2. A good-for-nothing who spends his time looking for amusement and adventure.^[7][4]

Adjective

1. Wandering from place to place without aim;^[4][7] (of animals, especially dogs) stray.^[4][7]
2. Typical of a vagrant: o viață vagabondă “a vagrant's life”.^[7][16]
3. (figurative, of imagination or inspiration) Unsteady, changeable.^[7][14]

Related words

• vag
• hoinar
• French vagabond

Usage notes

The feminine is vagabondă;^[4][7] DEX 2009 also lists vagaboandă.^[4][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vagabónd
3. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1388
4. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1180
5. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. vagabond
6. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. vagabond
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1406
8. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vagabond
9. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 672
10. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 611
14. ^ a b c Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 684
15. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. vagabond
16. ^ Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. vagabond