zice

Forms

zice (third-person singular present zice, past participle zis, third-person subjunctive zică) 3rd conjugation^[1] The Codicele Voronețean writes the initial with ⟨g⟩: „Giudețului oamenilor tăi se nu-i gici reu” “thou shalt not speak evil of the judge of thy people”.^[2] MDA2 records gice as an old variant.^[3] Other old texts write ⟨dz⟩: „cu gicerea ce ai dzis” “with the judgement you have spoken” in the Psaltirea Scheiană, and „Ce-ai dzâs cu rostul” “what you have said with your mouth” in Dosoftei's Psalter.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dīcō (“to say”).^[4][3][1][5] The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian dzîc, Megleno-Romanian zic and Istro-Romanian zic.^[4][6] Its Romance cognates include Italian dire, French dire, Spanish decir and Portuguese dizer.^[5] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *déyḱeti (“to show, point out”).^[1]

Graur lists it with the learned loans of the same Latin family, among them dicta, dicțiune, edict and indica.^[7] prezice “to foretell” was formed after French prédire, and cică “so they say” is shortened from ⟨zice că⟩ “he says that”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), with the sense “to say, speak”.^[3][2] In the psalters zice appears from Coresi's Psalter of 1570 on, and dzice in the Ciobanu Psalter.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From “to say” the verb took on the senses “to state, claim”, “to think, believe” (ce zici? “what do you think?”), “to call, name” and, reflexive, “to be called”.^[4][9] In popular use it also means “to sing” or “to play” an instrument (a zice din fluier “to play the flute”), whence zicător and zicălaș “fiddler”.^[4][9][1]

In the standard language a zice shares the field with spune, and the DLR describes the two as competing.^[2] The derivatives zicală and zicătoare mean “saying, proverb”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – gici in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[3][2]
• 1570 – zice in Coresi's Psalter.^[8]
• c. 1573–1578 – dzis in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To say, speak, utter; to tell someone: cât ai zice pește “in a flash”;^[9][1] vrea să zică “that is to say, it means”.^[9][1]
2. To state, declare, claim; to object: n-am ce zice “I can't complain”.^[9]
3. To think, believe, give one's opinion: bine zici “you're right”.^[9]
4. (popular) To sing; to play an instrument.^[9][1]
5. To call, name;^[1] (reflexive) to be called.^[4][1]

Word family

• zicală
• zicălaș
• zicătoare
• zicătură
• zicere
• zicător
• prezice
• zis
• contrazice
• cică

Related words

• dezice
• spune

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. zice
3. ^ 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, 1574
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. zice
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8268
6. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 338
7. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 37
8. ^ 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 49:13
9. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1225