șerb

Forms

șerb m (plural șerbi)^[1] The feminine is șearbă or șarbă: Dosoftei writes of Haritina that she was „șarbă ... orecăruia Caludie” “the bondwoman of a certain Claudius”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin servus (“slave”), with the feminine from serva.^{[4][3][5][6][2][1]} Latin /w/ became /b/ here, as the Lexicon de la Buda already noted.^[7] The Romance cognates are Italian servo, Portuguese servo, Occitan ser, French serf and Spanish siervo.^[4][8] The Latin word may be Etruscan, as the OLD suggests;^[9][1] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *ser-wo-s (“guardian”).^[9][1]

Romanian also has serv, borrowed later from the same Latin word, and the verb servi, from French servir, beside the inherited șerbi.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin cites the personal name Schereb in a Transylvanian charter of 1383 and the common noun in a Slavonic–Romanian document of 1407.^[6] In Romanian texts it first appears in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where șerbul renders “servant” more than twenty times, mostly in “thy servant”, said of the psalmist before God.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts a șerb was a slave or bondservant, and in church language the “servant of God”, a devout person.^[3][2] The chroniclers used it for subjection to a power: Ureche writes of the Turks „că supt mâna lor și supt jugul lor sântem șerbi” “for under their hand and their yoke we are slaves”.^[2] A rare polite formula was sunt șerbul dumneavoastră “I am your servant”.^[3]

The sense “serf”, a peasant bound to a landowner's estate, is the one used for the Middle Ages.^[5][3] Scriban notes that such serfs were called rumâni in Wallachia, vecini in Moldavia and iobagi in Transylvania.^[11] In the 19th century Negruzzi still listed șerb among the words of the old church books.^[12] The word is also a common surname, Șerb or Șerbu, and the base of the name Șerban.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1383 – the personal name Schereb in a Transylvanian charter.^[6]
• 1407 – the common noun in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[6]
• 1426 – the personal name Șerba Paușescul.^[13]
• c. 1500-1520 – șerbul “servant” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10][3]
• 1515 – the place name Valea Șerbului.^[6]
• 1570 – șerbi in Coresi's psalter.^[15]
• c. 1642-1647 – șerbi “subjects” in Ureche's chronicle.^[2]
• 1673 – frequent in Dosoftei's verse psalter.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A serf: a peasant of the Middle Ages bound to the land of a feudal lord; iobag.^[5][3][1]
2. (obsolete) A slave; rob.^[5][3]
3. (obsolete, church) șerbul lui Dumnezeu: the servant of God, a devout person.^[3][2]

Word family

• șerbi
• șerbie

Related words

• sclav
• rob
• serv
• servi
• Latin servus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 281
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1095
4. ^ a b c Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. șerb
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1087
6. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. șerb
7. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 634
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7876
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. servus
10. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 18:12
11. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1278
12. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 338
13. ^ a b Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. șerb
14. ^ Iordan, Iorgu (1983), Dicționar al numelor de familie românești, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 433
15. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 134:1