vargă

Forms

vargă f (plural vergi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin virga (“twig, rod”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1][7]} It survives in all four branches: Aromanian veargã, Megleno-Romanian veargă and Istro-Romanian verge.^{[2][8][9][10]} Its Romance cognates include Italian verga, Sardinian birga, French verge, Occitan verga, Catalan verga, Spanish verga and Portuguese verga.^[2][7] For its nautical sense “yard of a sail” the DLR and MDA2 compare French vergue.^[4][5]

Ciorănescu notes the doublet vergă “yard”, from the Italian word.^[2] The derivative vărgat “striped” may continue Latin virgātus directly, and vergea “small rod” may continue Vulgar Latin *virgella, as Pușcariu and the REW propose.^[2][11][12]

The Latin word is traced to Proto-Indo-European *wisgā (“flexible rod or stick”), an uncertain reconstruction;^[1] de Vaan finds only the Germanic words such as Old Norse visk (“wisp”) close enough to it.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, in Psalm 22:4, “thy rod and thy staff”.^[14] Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Molitvenic of 1564.^[6] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has the same psalm as „Toiagul tău și varga ta, aceasta m-au mângâiat”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is a thin, flexible rod cut from a branch.^[3][6] Rods were used for flogging, and the plural vergi named both the bundle of rods and the strokes: Dosoftei's saint „fu bătut preste față și preste cap cu vergi”.^[6][3] The word came to name the marks left by the strokes, already Strieme “weal” in Klein's dictionary of 1801, and stripes of colour on cloth.^[15][3] It also names the parts of many tools: the ramrod of a gun, the back of a scythe blade, a fishing rod, a wand.^[6][3]

Expressions include a tremura ca varga “to shake like a leaf” and varga lui Dumnezeu “the scourge of God”, of a harsh person or a disaster.^[3][5][6] Ciorănescu traces Modern Greek βεργίτσα (vergítsa) back to this word.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – varga in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[14]
• 1564 – vargă in Coresi's Molitvenic.^[6]
• 1672–1673 – vargă glossing Slavonic žezlŭ “staff” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[16]
• 1688 – „varga ta” “thy rod” in the Bucharest Bible.^[6]
• 1801 – várga with Latin virga and German Strieme “weal” in Klein's dictionary.^[15]
• 1825 – vargă “rod” and “stripe” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long, thin, flexible switch or rod cut from a straight branch;^[3][5][1] a tremura ca varga “to shake like a leaf”.^[3][5][1]
2. (in the plural) A bundle of rods formerly used for flogging; a stroke with a rod, and the weal it leaves.^[3]
3. A fishing rod; a ramrod; a wand; a thin metal bar.^[3]
4. Varga-ciobanului: wild teasel (Dipsacus); vargă-de-aur: goldenrod (Solidago virgaurea).^[3]
5. (popular; plural vărgi) A stripe, especially on cloth.^[3]

Word family

• vărga
• vărgat
• vărgui
• vergea
• vergela

Related words

• vergă
• Aromanian veargã
• Latin virga

Usage notes

The word has two plurals: vergi for the rods and vărgi for the stripes.^[3] Old texts also have the plural verge.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. vargă
3. ^ 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. 1183
4. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vargă
5. ^ 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, 1414
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vargă
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9361
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 324
9. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 380
10. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 164
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9362
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9363
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 22:4
15. ^ 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. 473
16. ^ 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. vargă
17. ^ 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. 745