zeamă

Forms

zeamă f (plural zemuri)^[1] The variant zamă is old and regional: the Bucharest Bible of 1688 has „zamă jărtvelor” “broth of the sacrifices” (Isaiah 65:4).^[2][3] Dosoftei writes dzamă: „Mânca puțină dzamă de ordz” “he ate a little barley broth”.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin zema, as DEX, MDA2, the DLR and the DLRLV give it.^[4][5][3][6] The Latin noun is only recorded for a cooking pot, and the Romanian sense is closer to Ancient Greek ζέμα (zéma, “decoction, something boiled”), so Wiktionary and Ciorănescu take the word from Greek, sometimes through *zema.^[7][1][8] Ciorănescu cites Tiktin, Graur, Ivănescu, Rohlfs and Rosetti for the Greek source.^[8] Tiktin calls it an old loan from Greek, as the /dz/ of Aromanian and of the Moldavian and Banat dialects shows, and notes that Mihăescu takes it from Latin.^[2] The Greek noun is formed on ζέω (zéō, “to boil”) with the suffix -μα (-ma).^[1]

The word survives south of the Danube as Aromanian dzamã.^[8][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1491.^[2] In Romanian texts MDA2 and the DLR first quote Neagoe Basarab's Teachings, where there were „nici zemuri bune, nici fripturi” “neither good broths nor roasts”;^[5][3] MDA2's year 1843 is that of the edition.^[5][3] In Mardarie's lexicon of 1649 the form zamă glosses Old Church Slavonic сокъ (sokŭ).^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word names the liquid of a cooked dish and the dish itself, a broth or soup, and the juice of fruit and plants.^[4][2] Old cookery and medical books prescribe zeamă de carne “meat broth” and zeamă de găină “chicken broth” for the sick.^[3] Many phrases grew from the broth: zeamă lungă is a thin dish stretched to feed many and, figuratively, long empty talk.^[4][2] Tot de-o zeamă “of the same broth” means “all alike”.^[4][2] In slang the word has further senses.^[12] Ciorănescu reports that Ukrainian borrowed the word from Romanian.^[8]

Timeline

• 1491 – Tiktin's first record.^[2]
• 1649 – zamă in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1660 – zeamă in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – zamă in the Bucharest Bible, Isaiah 65:4.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A broth of meat or vegetables eaten as a dish, and the liquid part of a cooked dish.^[4][5][1]
2. The sap of plant cells, and fruit juice: zeamă de prune “plum brandy”.^[4][1]
3. Any of various liquids: ou cu zeamă “a soft-boiled egg”, and rarely blood.^[4]
4. (chemistry) Zeamă bordeleză: Bordeaux mixture, a blue suspension of copper sulphate used as a fungicide.^[4]

Word family

• zemos

Related words

• Aromanian dzamã

Usage notes

The plural is zemuri, also zemi.^[4][2] Zeamă de varză is the brine in which cabbage was pickled, a nu fi de nicio zeamă is said of someone who cannot be relied on, and a mânca singur bucatele și a lăsa altora zeama is to keep the profit and leave others the scraps.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. zeamă
3. ^ 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. zeamă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1222
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, 1560
6. ^ Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 327
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d 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. zeamă
9. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 79
10. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 424
11. ^ a b 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. zamă
12. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. zeamă
13. ^ 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. zeamă