Tworzonek – a word almost forgotten by history

Abstract

The aim of the article is to examine the lexeme tworzonek recorded in the 18th‑century court book of the village of Węgrzce Wielkie, in which the word most probably meant “cheese made with a bag or wooden mold, quark” and was the Polish translation of the Latin cāseus. The analysis consists of determining the meaning of the word in the aforementioned document and outside it, by collecting its mentions in selected historical and contemporary sources. As it turns out, this lexeme does not seem to be recorded in any dictionary or in any other historical text. However, the accounts of individual people indicate that the word tworzonki was used in the meaning of “preserves” by the oldest generation of southern Lesser Poland. The study also showed the occurrence of the lexeme in the form of a surname recorded at the end of the Middle Polish period, used by one family of several people. Individual mentions of this word, both in the appellativum and nomen proprium form, can be found on internet forums, but these are most often spelling mistakes or neologisms. Etymological, historical, and contemporary dictionaries only provide forms related to the word tworzonek, such as twaróg, tworzyć, or tworzydło.