vierme

Forms

vierme m (plural viermi)^[1] Scriban gives vierme as the western and verme as the eastern form.^[2] Jipescu writes gherme: „Când are omu patima limbuției, gherme la limbă” “when a man has a passion for talk, he has a worm on his tongue”.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vermis (“worm”).^{[4][3][5][6][7][1]} The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian yermu, Megleno-Romanian ghermi and Istro-Romanian lʼérmu.^[8][1][9][4] Its Romance cognates include Italian verme, French ver, Occitan verm, Catalan verm, Spanish verme and Portuguese verme.^[4][10]

The Latin noun comes from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis (“worm”), a word that also meant “snake” and is related to Old English wyrm and Old High German wurm.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, at Psalm 21:6.^[5][12] Tiktin cites the same verse in the Psaltirea Scheiană, and Dosoftei later paraphrased it: „Eu sunt un vierme nevolnic, iară nu om” “I am a wretched worm and not a man”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The old texts use the word of the worms that consume the dead and of rot: a text of 1574 warns „Nu vă ascundeți vistiiariul în pământ, io viermii o răzbesc” “do not hide your treasure in the earth, where the worms get through to it”.^[6] From Mark 9:46 comes viermii neadormiți “the sleepless worms” of hell.^[3]

In popular use the word also names insect larvae, and vierme de mătase “silkworm”, which Scriban takes as a calque of French ver à soie.^[13][3][2] In Maramureș vierme can mean “snake”, the old sense of the Indo-European word.^[3][11] Figuratively a vierme la inimă “worm at the heart” is a gnawing worry.^[13][14] From 2000 it names a computer worm, after English worm.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – vierme in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[5][12]
• 1574 – viermii in a text of that year.^[6]
• 1581 – Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură tells how Job was covered in worms.^[6]
• 1660 – viermii glosses Slavonic “worms” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[16]
• 1801 – Viérme in Klein's dictionary.^[17]
• 2000 – vierme “computer worm”.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A worm: a legless invertebrate with a soft, elongated body, living in soil, in water or as a parasite.^[13][5][1]
2. (popular) The larva of an insect; a maggot or grub;^[13][1] vierme de mătase “silkworm”.^[13][1]
3. (computing) A self-copying malicious program.^[15]

Word family

• viermănos
• viermăt
• viermui

Related words

• Aromanian yermu
• Latin vermis

Usage notes

Set phrases include a avea un vierme la inimă “to be eaten up by worry”, a trăi ca viermele în hrean “to live a hard life and get used to it” and a avea viermi “to be fidgety”.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1405
3. ^ 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. vierme
4. ^ a b c 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. vierme
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, 1475
6. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vierme
7. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 176
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 1107
9. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9231
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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 21:6
13. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1197
14. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 696
15. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. vierme
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. viermii
17. ^ 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. 475