ushi

Forms

ushi f^[1]

• Plural ush.^[2]
• Other spellings: ushe in Cunia, and ushã and ushe in Wiktionary;^[2][1] ÚȘE, plural uși, in Papahagi's dictionary;^[3] ușă, plural -și, in Dalametra;^[4] úșa (the articled form) in Mihăileanu.^[5]
• Pascu gives ușă, plural uși, from Dalametra, Mihăileanu, Boiagi and Papahagi, and use from Papahagi's tales and Obedenaru.^[6]
• Regional forms: úşă, plural úşe or úşî, in the dialect of Metsovo.^[7]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ustia (“door”),^[3][1] the Latin plural of ostium (“door”) in its form *ustium, which became a feminine singular.^[3][6][8][9] Pascu sets out the same chain from ostium and its plural.^[6]

The word is shared by the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian ușă, Megleno-Romanian ușă and Istro-Romanian úşe.^{[8][10][11][12]} Ciorănescu and Pușcariu follow Meyer-Lübke in deriving the Romanian word from *ustia, not from the classical ostium.^[8][13] Its western cognates include Italian uscio and French huis.^[9][8]

In Latin, ostium meant a door, above all the front door of a house.^[14] De Vaan derives it, through an adjective "having a mouth", from ōs (“mouth”), from Proto-Italic *ōs- and Proto-Indo-European *h₃eh₁os (“mouth”).^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pascu's sources, the oldest of them Boiagi's grammar of 1813, give the word with the sense "door".^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word kept the Latin sense, the door of a house or a church, and in Metsovo also the doorway or entrance.^[3][16][7] Papahagi and Mihăileanu record the saying nu-i úșe di băseárică ("he is not a church door"), said of someone who is not quite honest;^[3][5] Cunia gives the positive form, ushi di bisearicã, for an upright, kind person.^[16]

Timeline

• 1813 – ușă in Boiagi's grammar, as cited by Pascu.^[6]
• 1901 – úșa “the door” in Mihăileanu's dictionary.^[5]
• 1906 – ușă in Dalametra's dictionary.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A door.^[1][16][3]
2. (Metsovo) A doorway, an entrance.^[7]
3. (in ushi di bisearicã) An honest, upright person.^[16]

Related words

• Romanian ușă

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 1070
3. ^ a b c d e f Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1096
4. ^ a b Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 216
5. ^ a b c Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 527
6. ^ a b c d e 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, 181
7. ^ a b c Δασούλας, Φώτης (2013), Το βλαχικό ιδίωμα του Μετσόβου, 2nd ed.
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)
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 319
11. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
12. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 163
13. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 172
14. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
16. ^ a b c d Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)