cucuruz
Romanian
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Attested 1575 as Cucurezi, the name of a village (today Cucuruzu, Giurgiu County), as Cucuruz from 1621. As maize (cucurudz, triticum turcicum) in Dictionarium Valachico-Latinum (Caransebeș, c. 1650).[1]
From Latin cucullus "hood, doll, cocoon" via a Balkan word – Aromanian cucul, Albanian kukull – with rhotacism l > r and suffix -uz (originally -ëz).[2] The reference is to the wrapped, cocoon-like nature of the maize cob. The Latin word itself may be a loan from Illyrian.[3]
Older theories posited a development from a base coc – cf. buburuză, from bob "grain, bean" – with a primary meaning of "pine cone".[4]
From Romanian and Serbo-Croatian kukuruz, the word spread into other languages, e.g. Hungarian kukorica, Russian кукуруза, Ottoman Turkish قوقوروز, &c.
Noun
[edit]cucuruz m (plural cucuruzi)
Declension
[edit]| singular | plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite | ||
| nominative-accusative | cucuruz | cucuruzul | cucuruzi | cucuruzii | |
| genitive-dative | cucuruz | cucuruzului | cucuruzi | cucuruzilor | |
| vocative | cucuruzule | cucuruzilor | |||
Descendants
[edit]- Serbo-Croatian: kukuruz
- → German: Kukuruz
- → Slovene: koruza
- Hungarian: kukorica
- → Slovak: kukurica
- → Czech: kukuřice
- Ukrainian: кукуру́дза
- Ottoman Turkish: قوقوروز
- Turkish: kokoroz (dialectal)
- Tatar: кукуруз (ququruz /kukuruz/)
- Yiddish: קוקורוזע (kukuruze)
References
[edit]- ^ A. Drace-Francis, The Making of Mămăligă. Budapest – Vienna – New York, 2022, p. 22, 158.
- ^ Drace-Francis, A. (2024). Kukuruz "cocoon"? Zeitschrift für Balkanologie, 60:1 [1]
- ^ A. Ernout, A. Meillet, Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Latine, 4th edn. Paris, 2001, p. 154. [2]
- ^ “cucuruz”, in Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (in Romanian), București: Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti