پزونك

Ottoman Turkish

Alternative forms

• پوزونك (püzevenk, pözevenk)
• [script needed] (bajveng)
• پژوند (pejvend)

Etymology

From Persian پژوند (pažavand, pažvand), پژاوند (pažâvand, “pimp”), پازنک (pâzanak, “pimp”), whence also Azerbaijani pəzəvəng (“huge, churl, berk, lout”).

The oft-repeated etymology from Middle Armenian բոզաւագ (bozawag, “whoremaster”) is incorrect, as the Armenian term is a barely-attested literary invention, whereas Turkish borrowings from Armenian are usually acquired orally from Armenian dialects.

See also the colloquial variants of پاسبان (pasban, “guard”); even if the present Turkish term is borrowed from Persian, in Iran the term may be itself have been loaned from the northwest to designate a “whore-watcher” (not the best-recorded regiolects of Turkish and Persian also).

Noun

پزونك • (pezevenk)

1. procurer, whoremaster, pimp, mackerel, bawd

   Synonyms: ترس (teres), قودوش (kodoş), قواد (kavad), دلال (dellal), محبت دلالی (muhabbet dellalı), [script needed] (martoloz).

Derived terms

• پزونكلك (pezevenklik, “pimping, procuring, proxenetism”)

Descendants

• Turkish: pezevenk
• → Albanian: pizaveng
• → Arabic:
  • Egyptian Arabic: بَزَوَنْك (bazawank, bazawang)
  • North Levantine Arabic: بَزَوَنْك (bezawenk)
  • South Levantine Arabic: بَزَوَنْك (bazawank)
• → Armenian: փէօզէվէնկ (pʻēōzēvēnk), փէզէվէնկ (pʻēzēvēnk)
• → Aromanian: pizivengu, pisivengu
• → Bulgarian: пезеве́нк (pezevénk)
• → Greek: πεζεβέγκης (pezevégkis)
• → Hungarian: pezinengh
• → Ladino: pezevenk
• → Macedonian: пезевенк (pezevenk)
• → Romanian: pezevenchi, pezevenc, pezeveng, pezevenghi, pezevenche, pezevenghe, pozovenchi, pozovenchi, pozovenche, vezevenghe
• → Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic script: пезѐвенк, пѐнзевенк

  Latin script: pezèvenk, pènzevenk

Further reading

• Çağbayır, Yaşar (2007) “pezevenk”, in Ötüken Türkçe Sözlük (in Turkish), volume IV, Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat, page 3841b
• Dankoff, Robert (1991) An Evliya Çelebi Glossary: Unusual, Dialectal and Foreign Words in the Seyahat-name (Sources of oriental languages and literatures; 14)‎^[3], Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, page 68
• Dankoff, Robert (1995) Armenian Loanwords in Turkish (Turcologica; 21), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, page 29
• Eren, Hasan (1999) “pezevenk”, in Türk Dilinin Etimolojik Sözlüğü [Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language] (in Turkish), Ankara: Bizim Büro Basım Evi, page 332a
• Kakuk, Suzanne (1973) “pezevenk”, in Recherches sur l’histoire de la langue osmanlie des XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Les éléments osmanlis de la langue hongroise (Near and Middle East Monographs; 17) (in French), The Hague and Paris: Mouton, page 329
• Meninski, Franciszek à Mesgnien (1680) “پزونك”, in Thesaurus linguarum orientalium, Turcicae, Arabicae, Persicae, praecipuas earum opes à Turcis peculiariter usurpatas continens, nimirum Lexicon Turkico-Arabico-Persicum‎^[4], Vienna, column 812
• Meninski, Franciszek à Mesgnien (1680) “پوزونك”, in Thesaurus linguarum orientalium, Turcicae, Arabicae, Persicae, praecipuas earum opes à Turcis peculiariter usurpatas continens, nimirum Lexicon Turkico-Arabico-Persicum‎^[5], Vienna, column 921
• Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–) “pezevenk”, in Nişanyan Sözlük
• Zenker, Julius Theodor (1866) “پزونك”, in Türkisch-arabisch-persisches Handwörterbuch, volume 1 (overall work in German and French), Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, page 196