featã

Forms

featã f (plural feati or feate, definite articulation feata)^[1]

• Plural feati or feate, definite singular feata.^[1][2]
• Other spellings: fiate in Wiktionary;^[1] feáta (the articled form) in Mihăileanu's Romanian-based spelling;^[3] FEÁTĂ in Papahagi's dictionary, plural feáte;^[4] Φιάτα in the Greek script of Kavalliotis's word list, which its editor reads as fiat.^[5]
• Regional forms: fe'atā, plural fe'ati, in the village of Turia;^[6] feátă, plural feáte, in the dialect of Metsovo.^[7]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fēta (“a female that has just given birth”),^[8][4][1] the noun use of the feminine of the adjective fētus (“having recently given birth”).^[1][9] Pascu explains the Latin word as a pregnant woman, a female big with young, or one that has given birth.^[8] In Latin, fēta was said above all of a female animal that had just given birth, and also of women.^[10] De Vaan traces fētus to Proto-Italic *fēto- and Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-to- (“having given birth”), from the root *dʰeh₁- (“to suckle, nurse”), which also gave fēmina (“woman”).^[9][1]

The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian fată, Megleno-Romanian fe̯átă and Istro-Romanian fętę.^[11][12][13] Further west, the descendants of the Latin word kept the sense of a female animal that has given birth: Friulian fede, Lombard feda and Piedmontese fea mean "sheep", and Spanish jeda a cow with a calf.^[11][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Kavalliotis's Greek–Aromanian–Albanian word list of 1770, where Φιάτα translates Modern Greek κόρη (kóri, “girl”).^[5]

Semantic evolution

Aromanian kept only the human sense: the word means a girl or a young unmarried woman, and a daughter as opposed to a son.^[15][4][1] From "unmarried girl" it also came to mean a virgin;^[1][4] Mihăileanu records feată vírghiră for a grown girl who is still a virgin,^[3] and Papahagi quotes the saying nu lo feátă, lo parádz ("he did not marry a girl, he married money").^[4] In the dialect of Metsovo it is also the name of a woven pattern.^[7]

Timeline

• 1770 – Φιάτα “girl” in Kavalliotis's word list.^[5]
• 1901 – feáta “girl”, with feată vírghiră “grown girl, virgin”, in Mihăileanu's dictionary.^[3]
• 1925 – Pascu derives it from Latin fēta.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A girl; a young unmarried woman.^[15][4][1]
2. A daughter.^[15][1][6]
3. (figurative) A virgin.^[1][4][3]
4. (Metsovo) The name of a pattern in weaving.^[7]

Word family

• fiticã
• fititsã
• fitami
• fitame
• fitaryio
• fituriu

Related words

• fet
• Romanian fată

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 450
3. ^ a b c d Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 189
4. ^ a b c d e f g Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 546
5. ^ a b c Meyer, Gustav (1895), Albanesische Studien IV: Das griechisch-südrumänisch-albanesische Wörterverzeichnis des Kavalliotis, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, phil.-hist. Classe 132, p. 70
6. ^ a b Бара, Мариана; Каль, Теде; Соболев, Андрей Н. (2005), Южноарумынский говор села Турия (Малый диалектологический атлас балканских языков, серия монографий 1), p. 352
7. ^ a b c Δασούλας, Φώτης (2013), Το βλαχικό ιδίωμα του Μετσόβου, 2nd ed.
8. ^ a b c 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, 85
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
12. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–
13. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ a b c Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)