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Etymology and origin of the Hungarian word baj

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1260–1270 charter known from a copy of 1331 (in boyseb)
Borrowed from
Serbo-Croatian boj
Ultimate origin
Proto-Slavic *biti

Pronunciation

Forms

baj (plural bajok)[1] The first record has the form boy-;[2][3] baj from about 1395.[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Serbo-Croatian boj (“fight; duel”), a South Slavic borrowing;[3][4][5][6][1] Old Croatian (Chakavian) had the sense “duel”.[3][4][5][6][1] The Slavic word, Proto-Slavic *bojь, is a derivative of *biti (“to beat, strike”); compare Bulgarian бой (boj, “battle; beating”), Slovene boj (“fight”), Slovak boj (“fight, battle”) and Russian бой (boj, “battle; beating”).[3][5]

It came into Hungarian together with bajnok, originally “duellist”, as a legal term for the judicial duel; this sense survives in bajvívás and párbaj.[3][5][4][6] The judicial duel was a means of proof in medieval Hungarian law until Act XVIII of 1486 abolished it.[2] TESz rejects a Turkic origin, and Miklosich records a comparison with Finnish vaiva (“trouble”) that others had made.[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first certain record is a Latin charter of 1260–1270, known from a copy of 1331, which excepts from a grant cases of homicide, theft, arson and the wound quod wlgo dicitur boyseb “which is commonly called a duel wound”.[3][2] The record of 1231 that earlier dictionaries quoted comes from a forged charter.[3][2] About 1395 the Besztercei word list glosses Latin duellum with bay.[3]

Semantic evolution

From “fight, duel” the word came to mean “difficulty, toil”, which in turn gave “illness, defect”, “the call of nature” and “obstacle”.[3] ÚESz dates more senses from Transylvanian records: “the place of a duel” about 1405, “worry” in 1568, “matter, affair” in 1631, “illness” in 1768 and “menstruation” in 1829.[5] The old sense was still used in the 18th–19th centuries, as the NSz quotations of 1776–1846 show.[8]

The verb bajlódik “to toil, to struggle with something” is recorded from about 1493, bajos “difficult” from 1585 and bajmolódik from 1591.[3][5]

The Hungarian word passed into Romanian in Hungary as baj (“trouble, worry”); its ⟨a⟩ shows that it came from Hungarian and not straight from Slavic.[9][7] Slovaks in contact with Hungarians say Slovak baj (“worry; illness”) (from 1848), and it reached Ukrainian and Prekmurje Slovene too.[10]

Timeline

  • 1260–1270 (copy of 1331) – boyseb “duel wound” in a Latin charter.[3]
  • c. 1395 – bay “duel” in the Besztercei word list.[3][5]
  • c. 1493 – bajlódik in the Festetics Codex.[3][5]
  • 1568 – “worry”, in Transylvania.[5]
  • 1585 – bajos in Calepinus.[3]
  • 1668 – “difficulty, trouble”.[3][5]
  • 1768 – “illness, defect”.[5]
  • 1848 – Slovak baj.[10]
  • 1886 – “obstacle”.[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. trouble: a bad, worrying situation, or the experience of it; a mishap: Nem nagy baj.[11][1]
  2. Toil, work that takes more effort than usual.[11]
  3. A fault or defect in how something works or is made.[11]
  4. An illness, an ailment.[11][1]
  5. (obsolete) A fight, duel.[8][1]

Word family

  • bajlódik
  • bajos
  • bajmolódik
  • bajoskodik
  • bajnok
  • bajvívás
  • párbaj

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kniezsa, István (1955), A magyar nyelv szláv jövevényszavai I/1–2, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 71
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 218
  4. ^ a b c Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1993–1997), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Ungarischen, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 118
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
  6. ^ a b c Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
  7. ^ a b Miklosich, Franz (1884), Die slavischen Elemente im Magyarischen, 2nd ed. by L. Wagner, Wien / Teschen: Prochaska, p. 64
  8. ^ a b Ittzés, Nóra (ed.) (2006–), A magyar nyelv nagyszótára, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó / Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at nagyszotar.nytud.hu
  9. ^ Alexics, György (1888), Magyar elemek az oláh nyelvben, Budapest, p. 28
  10. ^ a b Gregor, Ferenc (2023), A szlovák nyelv magyar elemei, ed. András Zoltán, Budapest: Kairosz, p. 116
  11. ^ a b c d Bárczi, Géza; Országh, László (eds.) (1959–1962), A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára, 7 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online at ertelmezo.oszk.hu
Cite this entry

“Baj.” Etymologically, 25 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/hu/baj. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

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