zăcea

Forms

zăcea (third-person singular present zace, past participle zăcut, third-person subjunctive zacă) 2nd conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin iaceō (“to lie”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu cites Pușcariu and the REW for this etymology.^[2][6] Latin /j/ would give ⟨j⟩ in Romanian; the ⟨z⟩ is put down to dissimilation from the following consonant, as Tiktin proposed.^[2][1]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian dzac, Megleno-Romanian zac and Istro-Romanian zǫc.^[2][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian giacere, Portuguese jazer, French gésir, Catalan jaure and Spanish yacer.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1551–1553, in a Gospel text at Matthew 8:6.^[9] MDA2 gives Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581.^[4] The sense is “to lie (sick)”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The old texts already use the word of the sick, the imprisoned and the dead: Coresi's Gospel has Lazarus who „zăcea naintea ușiei lui cu puroi” “lay before his door full of sores” (Luke 16:20).^[9] From lying the meaning extended to things that lie or rest somewhere: a stone over a cave, darkness over the deep in Dosoftei's Genesis.^[9] In modern use it is also said of feelings or faults that lie hidden, and of things left untouched for a long time.^[3]

Its derivatives include zăcător “lying shut away” and zăcătoare “pen; vat; lower millstone”;^[4] zăcământ “deposit, seam” was formed on the model of French gisement.^[2]

Timeline

• 1551-1553 – zăcea in a Gospel text (Matthew 8:6).^[9]
• 1581 – zăcea in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[4]
• 1649 – zac and zace gloss Slavonic “I lie, he lies” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – zăcea in the first verses of Genesis in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lie stretched out on a bed or on the ground, from idleness or tiredness; of things, to lie felled.^[3][1]
2. To lie ill in bed; to be sick.^[3]
3. To lie dead or buried.^[3]
4. Of feelings, qualities or faults: to lie hidden, to be latent.^[3][1]
5. To stay somewhere for a long time, left untouched;^[3] a zăcea în temniță “to languish in prison”; to be situated.^[3]

Word family

• zăcaș
• zăcător
• zăcătoare
• zăcământ
• zăcere

Related words

• Aromanian dzac
• Latin iaceō

Usage notes

MDA2 records the variants zace and jăcea.^[4]

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. zăcea
3. ^ 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. 1217
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1538
5. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. zăcea
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4562
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 430
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 332
9. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. zăcea
10. ^ 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. zăcea
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 1:2