viespar

Forms

viespar n (plural viespare)^[1] The nest is a neuter noun with the plural viespare; as the name of an insect or a bird the word is masculine, plural viespari.^[2][3] Regional variants include vespar, viaspar, vispar, vipsar and văspar.^[3] Scriban gives viespar as the western and vespar as the eastern form.^[4]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian viespe + -ar, from viespe “wasp” with the suffix of place and agent.^[3][5][2][6] Pușcariu took it instead from Late Latin vespārium (“wasp nest”), and Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[6][1] The base goes back to Latin vespa (“wasp”), from Proto-Indo-European *wóbʰseh₂.^[1][7]

The word has an Aromanian counterpart, Aromanian yispar.^[6][8] The other Romance languages made their names for the nest in the same way on their word for “wasp”: Italian vespaio, French guêpier, Catalan vesper, Occitan vespièr, Spanish avispero and Portuguese vespeiro.^[1] The bird sense “bee-eater” follows the French word, which also names both the nest and the bird.^[4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, from 1703, compares people to wasps stirred out of their nest: „ca niște viespi scornite din viespar”.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

From the nest the word passed to its whole swarm, and figuratively to a crowd that swarms, a group of people hostile to one another, and a dangerous place.^[3][2] Writers compare a noisy, quarrelsome gathering to a wasps' nest rather than a beehive.^[5] Folk belief used the nest too: a boiled nest was given for epilepsy in children, and its height above ground foretold the depth of the next winter's snow.^[5]

As a masculine noun it names insects: in popular speech wasps and above all the hornet (viespar rău), regionally the bumblebee and the botfly.^[3][5] It also names two birds that eat wasps and bees: the bee-eater, after French usage, recorded from 1868, and the honey buzzard.^[9][4][3]

Timeline

• 1703 – viespar “wasps' nest”, the first record.^[3][5]
• 1868 – viespar “bee-eater” in Barcianu's dictionary.^[9]
• 1897 – viespar “wasps' nest” in a zoology textbook by Leon.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wasp nest, or the wasps living in it.^[2][3]
2. (figurative) A swarm of creatures milling about.^[2][11]
3. (figurative) A group of people set against one another, or the dangerous place where such people are; a hornets' nest.^[2][3]
4. (masculine) The hornet (Vespa crabro); popularly also the common wasp.^[2][3]
5. (masculine, regional) The bumblebee; the botfly.^[3][5]
6. (masculine) The bee-eater (Merops apiaster), a brightly coloured migratory bird; synonym of albinărel and prigoare.^[2][3]
7. (masculine) The honey buzzard (Pernis apivorus).^[3][12]

Related words

• viespe
• viespărie
• Aromanian yispar

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1197
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1476
4. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1405
5. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. viespar
6. ^ 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. viespe
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 1112
9. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. viespár 1
10. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. viespár 2
11. ^ Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. viespar
12. ^ Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 661