viță

Forms

viță f (plural vițe)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vītea, a form beside vītis (“vine”).^[2][3][4][5] Scriban explains it as the feminine of a Latin adjective meaning “of the vine”, used as a noun;^[6] DEX and Șăineanu mark the Latin form as unattested,^[3][7] and Wiktionary gives the intermediate stage as *vītia.^[1]

The word also lives on south of the Danube: Megleno-Romanian viță and Aromanian yitsã.^[2][8][1][9] Ciorănescu compares dialectal Italian forms and French vis;^[2] Pușcariu adds a south-eastern French ⟨vissa⟩ “vine”.^[9] The French word, which now means “screw”, comes from the same Latin noun.^[10]

Weigand derived the Romanian word from Russian вица (vica), but Ciorănescu rejects this as most improbable, since vine-growing is not native to the Slavic lands.^[2] For him the borrowing went the other way: Modern Greek βίτσα (vítsa, “switch, rod”) and the Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian ⟨vica⟩ come from Romanian.^[2] The Bulgarian etymological dictionary disagrees: it takes Bulgarian вица (vica, “pliant rod”) as a Slavic formation from the verb for “to twist”, the source of the Greek word, and holds that the Romanian word, from Latin, only resembles it by chance.^[11] Kriaras derives the Greek word from Latin, with Romanian and Slavic forms beside it.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, at Psalm 127:3.^[13] Tiktin and MDA2 date the word to the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), whose text of Acts tells how Paul gathered „vițe de vie multe” “many vine branches” and laid them on the fire.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

From the vine itself the word came to name one of its long, pliant shoots, then the shoots and stems of other climbing plants.^[3][4] The 1688 Bible already speaks of vine shoots being cut back.^[4] Old texts also use it for a cord or strand and for a family or blood line, and the phrase de viță meant “noble”.^[14] Șăineanu explains the sense “family” by the branching tendrils of the vine, as in a family tree.^[7] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 gives both the vine shoot and the family.^[15]

Ciorănescu compares the step from “shoot” to “lock of hair” with Spanish ⟨guedeja⟩, from Latin ⟨viticula⟩.^[2] Modern Romanian keeps the lock of hair and the strands twisted or plaited into a cord; at sea it is a wire rope.^[3] Scriban also records small red veins under the skin, such as those on a drinker's nose.^[6] In Maramureș de viță aleasă means “of a noble family”.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – viță in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[13]
• c. 1551–1558 – viță in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[13]
• c. 1563–1583 – vițe de vie in the Codicele Voronețean.^[4][5]
• 1688 – vițe “vine stocks” in the Bucharest Bible.^[17][4]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda gives the vine shoot and the sense “family”.^[15]
• 1865 – Pisone glosses viță as “stock, race, family”.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. grapevine (often viță de vie): a climbing plant with tendrils, lobed leaves and fruit in bunches, grown in many varieties for grapes and wine (Vitis).^[3][5][1]
2. Viță de Canada, viță sălbatică: Virginia creeper, an ornamental climber whose leaves turn red in autumn.^[3]
3. Each long, pliant shoot of the vine; by extension the trailing stem of another plant.^[3]
4. Viță-albă: traveller's joy, a climbing clematis with fragrant white flowers (Clematis vitalba).^[3]
5. (popular) A lock of hair; each strand plaited or twisted to make a cord;^[1] (nautical) a wire rope.^[3]
6. (figurative) A descendant, offspring; by extension a family, lineage, kind: un boier de viță veche “a boyar of old lineage”.^[3][1]

Word family

• vițion
• vițos

Related words

• Aromanian yitsã
• Latin vītis

Usage notes

The phrase de viță means “of the best quality” or “of noble birth”.^[3] In everyday use the plant is mostly called viță de vie.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. viță
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1202
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. viță
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1495
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1411
7. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 699
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 329
9. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 179
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 1, 156
12. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
13. ^ a b c 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 127:3
14. ^ Gaster, M. (1891), Chrestomatie română: texte tipărite și manuscrise (sec. XVI–XIX), dialectale și populare, cu o introducere, gramatică și un glosar româno-francez, vol. II, Leipzig: Brockhaus / București: Socec, p. s.v. viță
15. ^ a b 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. 759
16. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. viță
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 40:10
18. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 407