The Romanian verb for ‘to walk’ comes from the Latin for ‘to sink’

then

*allentare ‘to make soft and pliant’

now

to pamper, to fondle

DEX derives it from a rebuilt Latin verb, *allentare, from lentus, ‘soft, pliant’. Its relatives in Italian, Provençal and Old French kept the sense ‘to loosen, to slacken’. Ciorănescu also cites Candrea and Densusianu’s explanation, from lenis, ‘gentle’. If it comes from lentus, the sense moved from things to people, as it did in Romanian blând, ‘gentle’, from Latin blandus.

dexonline: alinta · Lewis & Short, lentus

then

*manganeare ‘to use charms and potions’

now

to caress; to console

DEX and Ciorănescu derive it from a rebuilt Latin verb, *manganeare, taken from Greek manganeúō. The standard Greek dictionary, Liddell and Scott, translates it ‘to use charms or philtres’, said of Circe. Ciorănescu glosses it ‘to use fermented drinks’, which looks like a mistranslation. No source explains how it came to mean a caress. The first sense Ciorănescu gives is ‘to console’.

LSJ, μαγγανεύω · dexonline: mângâia

then

*ammagire ‘to bewitch’

now

to delude, to lure

The first sense Ciorănescu gives is ‘to bewitch, to cast spells’. The word comes, through a rebuilt Latin verb, from Greek mageúō, ‘to enchant’, from the family of magus, a magician. Whoever bewitched you also fooled you, and the sense of fooling is the one that stayed.

dexonline: amăgi

then

salutare ‘to greet’

now

to kiss

Romanian săruta, ‘to kiss’, and saluta, ‘to greet’, are the same Latin word, salutare, ‘to wish health, to greet’. Romanian inherited the first and borrowed the second much later, from books. Ciorănescu gives ‘to greet’ as the first sense of săruta, and the noun sărutat once also meant ‘a greeting’.

dexonline: săruta · Lewis & Short, saluto

then

dolus ‘pain’

now

longing for someone or something far away

Romanian dor, ‘longing’, is related to a durea, ‘to hurt’. It comes from a spoken-Latin dolus, ‘pain’, formed from dolere, ‘to hurt’. It is not the classical Latin dolus, which means ‘trickery’. The first sense Ciorănescu gives is ‘pain, torment, grief’. French deuil, ‘mourning’, comes from the same word.

dexonline: dor

then

zǫbŭ ‘tooth’

now

to smile

DEX links a zâmbi, ‘to smile’, directly to Slavic zǫbŭ, ‘tooth’, and to Bulgarian zăbja se. MDA2 gives a rebuilt Old Slavic form as the source and compares a Bulgarian verb meaning ‘to grin’. Either way, the root is the word for tooth.

dexonline: zâmbi · Proto-Slavic *zǫbъ

then

dragŭ ‘precious, costly’

now

dear, beloved

Slavic dragŭ meant both ‘costly’ and ‘beloved’, and Russian dorogoi still means both. Romanian kept only the second.

dexonline: drag · Proto-Slavic *dorgъ

then

skǫpŭ ‘stingy’

now

expensive; dear

Scump has also meant ‘stingy’. The proverb scumpul mai mult păgubește, ‘the stingy man loses more’, is about a miser, not about goods, and DEX still lists ‘stingy’ as an old and popular sense. Romanian invented nothing here: Slavic skǫpŭ already had both senses, as Bulgarian skăp does today. Together with drag it makes a pair, since both words can now mean ‘beloved’.

dexonline: scump · Proto-Slavic *skǫpъ

then

plicare ‘to fold’

now

to leave, to set off

Plicare means ‘to fold, to bend’. The old sense survives in Romanian a se apleca, ‘to bend down’. Spanish llegar and Portuguese chegar come from the same verb, and they mean ‘to arrive’. So one Latin word came to mean ‘to leave’ in Bucharest and ‘to arrive’ in Madrid.

How folding became leaving is disputed. Pușcariu and Scriban think of folding up the tent before a journey, like French plier bagage, ‘to pack up’. Tiktin thinks of ‘bending towards something’. Corominas starts from applicare, ‘to head towards’. Ciorănescu thinks it first meant ‘to turn back’.

dexonline: pleca · Lewis & Short, plico

then

adiungere ‘to join, to yoke together’

now

to arrive; to be enough

Adiungere means ‘to add, to join, to bind to something’, and literally it was said of cattle put under the yoke. DEX translates it ‘to unite, to stick together’. Among the first senses Ciorănescu gives for the Romanian verb are ‘to coincide’ and ‘to catch up with someone’. The dictionaries do not explain the step to ‘to arrive’.

dexonline: ajunge · Lewis & Short, adjungo

then

afflare ‘to breathe on’

now

to find out

DEX translates afflare as ‘to blow towards something, to touch with the breath’. Spanish hallar and Portuguese achar, ‘to find’, come from the same verb. Ciorănescu concludes that the meaning had changed before Romanian existed, in spoken Latin.

Why it changed is disputed. Schuchardt and, according to Ciorănescu, most modern philologists think of a hunting dog sniffing until it finds its quarry. Ciorănescu is not convinced and proposes ‘it breathes, so it exists’, hence Romanian se află, ‘is located’.

dexonline: afla · Lewis & Short, afflo

then

*astectare ‘to look at attentively’

now

to wait

The base form, aspectare, ‘to look at attentively, with longing’, is attested. The form Romanian comes from directly, *astectare, is rebuilt. Italian aspettare, ‘to wait’, took the same road: whoever waits keeps looking down the road.

dexonline: aștepta · Lewis & Short, aspecto

then

captare ‘to try to catch’

now

to look for

The origin is uncertain. DEX gives a rebuilt *cautare. Ciorănescu calls it ‘a word hard to explain’ and prefers captare, ‘to try to seize, to chase’. By late Latin that verb had come to mean ‘to look’: Isidore of Seville writes cattat, id est videt, ‘cattat, that is, he sees’. From looking, it came to mean looking for.

dexonline: căuta · Lewis & Short, capto

then

collocare ‘to place, to put in position’

now

to put to bed, to lie down

Collocare means ‘to place together, to arrange, to put in position’, the root of English collocate. French coucher comes from the same verb and also ended up in bed.

dexonline: culca · Lewis & Short, colloco

then

grabiti ‘to grab, to seize’

now

to hurry

Ciorănescu derives it from Slavic grabiti, ‘to seize, to rob’, a relative of English grab. DEX gives Bulgarian grabja (se) as the source. Ciorănescu notes that only Romanian turned grabbing into hurrying, and compares Latin rapidus, from rapere, ‘to seize’. Romanian repede, ‘fast’, comes from there too.

dexonline: grăbi · Proto-Slavic *grabiti

then

*invitiare ‘to get into a habit’

now

to learn; to teach

The Latin verb is rebuilt, from vitium, ‘flaw, bad habit’. That does not make learning a vice. The first sense given by Ciorănescu and MDA2 is ‘to accustom, to get used to’, as in its relatives in Italian and Provençal. The old noun învăț still means ‘habit, quirk’: a horse that is învățat has a habit, good or bad.

dexonline: învăța · Lewis & Short, vitium

then

dispectare ‘to open one’s eyes’

now

clever

The first sense DEX still gives is ‘not asleep; awake’, kept in a se deștepta, ‘to wake up’. The step from awake to clever happened in Romanian. The Latin root is disputed. The 2009 DEX and Ciorănescu give dispectare, ‘to open the eyes’. The 1998 DEX, Pușcariu and Meyer-Lübke give a rebuilt *de-excitare, ‘to rouse’.

dexonline: deștept · Lewis & Short, dispecto

then

prostŭ ‘simple, common’

now

stupid; poor-quality

Slavic prostŭ means ‘simple, straight’, like Russian prostoi today. The old sense survives in soldat prost, a private without rank, and MDA2 records an old sense, ‘of humble social standing’. Over time the plain man became the fool.

dexonline: prost · Proto-Slavic *prostъ

then

mǫdrŭ ‘wise’

now

proud; handsome

In the New Testament printed at Bălgrad (Alba Iulia) in 1648, the Magi are mândrii de la răsărit, ‘the wise men from the east’. The word comes from Slavic mǫdrŭ, ‘wise’, like Russian mudryi. The lexicographer Lazăr Șăineanu explained the shift by the man who thinks himself wise and grows arrogant. Not every source gives that explanation.

New Testament, Bălgrad 1648 · dexonline: mândru · Proto-Slavic *mǫdrъ

then

tǫpŭ ‘blunt’

now

dim-witted

Tâmpit, ‘dim-witted’, comes from a tâmpi, and that from tâmp, from Slavic tǫpŭ, ‘blunt’. DEX still gives a tâmpi an old and regional sense, ‘to go blunt, to chip’. The metaphor is not Romanian: Russian tupoi still means both ‘blunt’ and ‘stupid’, much as English dull describes a blade and a mind.

dexonline: tâmpi · Proto-Slavic *tǫpъ

then

conventus ‘a gathering, an assembly’

now

word; promise

Latin conventus means ‘assembly’, and conventum ‘agreement’; English convention comes from the same root. Ciorănescu shows that the same path, from ‘gathering’ to ‘talk’, appears in Albanian (kuvënt, ‘conversation’), modern Greek (kouvénta) and Serbian (zbor). Some linguists, such as Berneker and Sandfeld, explain it by a common Balkan background.

dexonline: cuvânt · Lewis & Short, conventus

then

in-sellare ‘to saddle a horse’

now

to deceive; to cheat on

DEX gives an old first sense, ‘to saddle a horse’, and derives it from Latin in-sellare, from sella, ‘seat, saddle’. Ciorănescu thinks it is a single word, because several Romanian verbs say ‘to fool someone’ as ‘to put something on them’: a potcovi, ‘to shoe’, and a încălța, ‘to put boots on’.

Many linguists, among them Miklosich, Weigand and Pușcariu, think these are two different words. For them, a înșela meaning ‘to deceive’ comes from a Slavic word meaning ‘profit’. The Romanian Academy’s shorter dictionary, MDA2, keeps them apart.

dexonline: înșela · Lewis & Short, sella

then

*oblitare ‘to forget’

now

to look at

A uita, ‘to forget’, comes from Latin oblitus, ‘forgotten’, the source of French oublier. The surprise is the reflexive a se uita, which means ‘to look’. Ciorănescu thinks it is the same verb: someone who forgets themselves stands still, eyes fixed on something. He compares Spanish fijarse. Other linguists think these are two words with different origins.

dexonline: uita

then

grěšiti ‘to sin’

now

to make a mistake

In Slavic the verb is made from grěxŭ, ‘sin’. The first sense Ciorănescu gives is ‘to sin’, and DEX still lists it. In the language of the church, the greșalele noastre of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘our trespasses’, are sins, not errors of arithmetic.

dexonline: greși · Proto-Slavic *grěšiti

then

castigare ‘to correct, to chastise’

now

to earn; to win

Castigare, from castus, ‘pure’, means ‘to set right by word or deed, to punish’; English chastise comes from it. So do French châtier and Spanish castigar, both ‘to punish’. In Romanian punishment did not turn straight into profit. The first sense Ciorănescu gives is ‘to raise, to look after’, and the nouns câștig and câștigă once meant ‘care’. Ciorănescu compares Old Sardinian castigare, ‘to keep’.

dexonline: câștiga · Lewis & Short, castigo

then

lucrare ‘to gain, to make a profit’

now

to work

Here the dictionaries contradict each other. DEX derives it from lucubrare, ‘to work at night by lamplight’. It is an attractive story, but Ciorănescu says it ‘does not seem possible’. He, Pușcariu and MDA2 derive it from lucrare (classical lucrari), ‘to gain’, a relative of lucrum, ‘profit’, the root of English lucre and lucrative.

MDA2’s first, old sense is precisely ‘to gain’. Ciorănescu calls the move from gain to work a normal one and compares French travailler.

dexonline: lucra · Lewis & Short, lucror

then

trajati ‘to last’

now

to live

Slavic trajati means ‘to last, to endure’. The old sense is still visible in trainic, ‘durable’. Ciorănescu considers unlikely another explanation, from Latin trahere, ‘to pull’.

dexonline: trăi · Proto-Slavic *trajati

then

časŭ ‘an hour, a stretch of time’

now

a clock, a watch

Slavic časŭ means ‘hour, time’. The first sense in DEX is still ‘a stretch of sixty minutes’, as in un ceas de mers pe jos, ‘an hour’s walk’. The name for the time then passed to the device that measures it.

dexonline: ceas · Proto-Slavic *časъ

then

arslanlı ‘the thaler with a lion’

now

Romania’s currency

The Romanian leu, literally ‘lion’, is named after a foreign coin: the thaler with a lion on it, which the Turks called arslanlı, ‘with a lion’, and the Germans Löwentaler. DEX and Ciorănescu say the name was translated from Turkish. MDA2 dates the first record to 1651. The leu has been Romania’s official currency since 1867.

dexonline: leu

then

barbatus ‘bearded’

now

man; husband

Barbatus means ‘bearded’. Already in Horace it could mean simply ‘a grown man’, and Latin glossaries give it the sense ‘man’. In Italian, Spanish and Portuguese its relatives stayed ‘bearded’.

dexonline: bărbat · Lewis & Short, barbatus

then

nevěsta ‘bride’

now

wife

In old Romanian the nevastă was the bride: a seventeenth-century law book calls a nun ‘the bride of God’, and the Wallachian version writes nevasta. Slavic nevěsta is usually explained as ‘the unknown one’, the stranger who enters the groom’s house. Max Vasmer, in his etymological dictionary of Russian, calls it the best explanation and says the name protected the bride from evil spirits. It is the most accepted explanation, not a proven one.

Vasmer · dexonline: nevastă · Proto-Slavic *nevěsta

then

basilica ‘a public hall in the Roman forum’

now

church

For the Romans a basilica was a public building in the forum, with double colonnades, used for trials and for trade. When Christians began building large churches they took over the shape of these halls and their name. Ciorănescu lists the same inheritance in a few Romance varieties: Dalmatian, a Lombard dialect and the Romansh of the Engadine. French has basoche, the old name of the guild of court clerks.

dexonline: biserică · Lewis & Short, basilica

then

buccata ‘a mouthful’

now

a piece

It comes from bucca, ‘puffed cheek, mouth’. Ciorănescu gives its starting sense as ‘the bit put in at one go’, into the mouth. The plural bucate, ‘dishes, food’, keeps it. French bouchée stayed a mouthful.

dexonline: bucată · Lewis & Short, bucca

then

superare ‘to surpass, to overcome’

now

to upset, to annoy

Superare means ‘to go over, to surpass, to overcome’. In the chronicler Nicolae Costin it still meant ‘to defeat’: pe unii i-au supărat cu pedeapsă, ‘some they overcame with punishment’. Ciorănescu explains the shift like this: whatever surpasses you is more than you can bear. He compares French excéder, both ‘to exceed’ and ‘to exasperate’.

dexonline: supăra · Lewis & Short, supero

then

plangere ‘to strike, to beat one’s breast’

now

to cry

Plangere first means ‘to strike, to beat noisily’. Roman mourners beat their breasts and heads, and the verb came to mean ‘to lament aloud’. The change had already happened in Latin; English plaint and complain share the root. Italian piangere and French plaindre come from the same verb.

dexonline: plânge · Lewis & Short, plango

then

pavimentum ‘a beaten floor’

now

earth, soil; the planet

A pavimentum was a Roman floor of small stones, earth or lime beaten down with a rammer, the source of English pavement. Ciorănescu shows that Romanian comes from a popular form, paumentum. In old Italian and in Sardinian the word stayed ‘floor, paving’. No source explains why, in Romanian, the floor became the whole earth.

dexonline: pământ · Lewis & Short, pavimentum

then

padulem ‘marsh’

now

forest

It comes from Latin palus, paludem, ‘marsh, swamp’, said popularly as padulem; paludism is an old name for malaria. In Tuscan, Old Sardinian and Old Spanish its relatives stayed ‘marsh’. In Romanian, and probably in Albanian pyll, they came to mean ‘forest’. The dictionaries do not say why.

dexonline: pădure · Lewis & Short, palus

then

*quodrum ‘a square, a quarter; a chunk’

now

a deep old forest

Codru has more proposed origins than almost any other word on this page. DEX and Ciorănescu derive it from Latin quadrum, ‘a square’. DEX goes through a rebuilt form, while Ciorănescu points out that Latin glossaries have the form codra. For Ciorănescu it meant ‘a quarter’, then ‘a piece’, then ‘a piece of land’, then ‘forest’. The old sense survives in un codru de pâine, ‘a hunk of bread’.

Others have taken it for a native pre-Roman word (Miklosich, Hasdeu), a Thracian one (Pascu) or an Albanian one, from kodër, ‘hill’ (Cihac, Meyer, Pușcariu).

dexonline: codru · Lewis & Short, quadrum

then

fossatum ‘a ditch; a fortified camp’

now

village

Nobody knows for sure. DEX derives it from fossatum, ‘ditch’, and the old form fsat, kept in Aromanian and Albanian, seems to support that. Scriban thought of ‘a camp surrounded by a ditch’. Ciorănescu calls the origin ‘doubtful’ and leans towards satum, ‘sown ground’, because in the sixteenth century sat often meant ‘field, ploughland’.

dexonline: sat · Lewis & Short, fossatum

then

mane ‘in the morning’

now

tomorrow

Mane means ‘morning, early in the morning’, and Romans said cras mane, ‘tomorrow morning’. French demain and Italian domani made the same move, from morning to the next day. No source explains the step in detail.

dexonline: mâine · Lewis & Short, mane

then

zapadŭ ‘a fall’

now

snow

Ciorănescu derives it from Slavic zapadŭ, ‘a fall’. DEX points to the verb zapadati, ‘to fall’. MDA2 explains it differently, as formed within Romanian from a zăpădi. All three go back to the Slavic root for ‘to fall’. The sense ‘snow’ developed only in Romanian. In Bulgarian, zapad came to mean ‘west’, where the sun goes down.

dexonline: zăpadă

then

marron ‘a chestnut’

now

brown

Romanian maro, ‘brown’, is French marron, ‘chestnut’, the large edible kind. The colour carries the fruit’s name, and DEX defines it as ‘the colour of ripe chestnuts’. Romanian also has castaniu, ‘chestnut-coloured’, which says the same with an older word.

dexonline: maro

then

quietus ‘quiet, at rest’

now

slowly; softly

It comes from Latin quietus, ‘quiet, at rest’, in the popular form quetus. Romanian a înceta, ‘to stop’, comes from it too, and so does French coi, ‘silent’. In Romanian, whoever is quiet moves slowly and speaks softly.

dexonline: încet · Lewis & Short, quiesco