șir

Forms

șir n (plural șiruri)^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[2][3] DEX 2009, MDA2 and Wiktionary take it as a back-formation from Romanian șiră: a new singular made from the plural ⟨șire⟩.^[4][5][1] The DLR and Tiktin trace that noun to *sīra, from Ancient Greek σειρά (seirá, “cord, rope”), as Graur proposed.^[6][7]

Graur argued that the plural ⟨șire⟩ fits a feminine noun better than a neuter one, so the older noun was the feminine, and that only a form with long /iː/ can explain it.^[3] Latin had no such word, but the Greek one, borrowed into Latin, would give it, with the stress moved to the first syllable as in biserică from βασιλική (basilikḗ).^[3] He saw a Romance trace of the Greek word in the verb *sīricō (“to tow”), which REW sets behind Spanish sirgar and Portuguese sirgar.^[3] Diculescu had already derived the feminine noun from Greek.^[3][2]

Ciorănescu rejects these explanations and sees an expressive creation evoking a stream, as in șiroi, comparing Spanish chorro “jet of water; row of identical things”.^[2] He lists the older proposals: Latin seriēs (“row, series”) (Philippide); Modern Greek σειρά (seirá) (Densusianu), which he finds hard to accept phonetically; Hungarian sor (“row”) (Tiktin's first edition, Gáldi); the same Latin noun through the verb înșira (Pascu); Bulgarian шир (šir, “width”) (Candrea); and a Turkish word for “row” (Lokotsch).^[2][3] Graur objects that Hungarian /o/ does not become /i/ in Romanian, and that the word is too old to be Ottoman Turkish.^[3] Procopovici derived the verb from inserō (“to insert”) and the noun from the verb, which Graur calls unacceptable.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to a document of 1594.^[7] MDA2's first record is the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, a Romanian–Latin glossary of about 1650–1700.^[5] Dosoftei's verse psalter uses în tot șirul “continually, all the time”: „Să vă veselească Iacov în tot șirul”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The spatial sense, a row or line of beings or things, is the oldest and the basis of the others: a string of beads, a line of writing, a mountain range, the trail of a trickling liquid.^[6][4] From the row in space came the succession in time, trei ani în șir “three years running”, and the logical thread of speech: Tiktin quotes a nu ține șir la vorbă “to talk incoherently” and vorbe fără șir “disconnected words”.^[7][4] Mathematics took it for a sequence.^[4]

Regional senses include decorative stitching on the sleeves and front of a blouse in Transylvania, and a folk dance with its tune.^[5] In Muntenia șirul spinării is the spine, elsewhere șira spinării.^[8][6] Klein's dictionary of 1801 glosses the word with Latin series, ordo, and the Lexicon of Buda (1825) derives it from Latin series, a view of its time.^[9][10]

Timeline

• 1594 – the first record, in a document.^[7]
• c. 1650–1700 – in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis glossary.^[5]
• 1673 – în tot șirul “continually” in Dosoftei's verse psalter.^[7]
• 1688 – the plurals șiruri and șirurile in the Bucharest Bible.^[11][12]
• 1801 – shir “series, order” in Klein's dictionary.^[9]
• 1825 – širu with a Latin etymology in the Lexicon of Buda.^[10]
• 1963 – Graur's study of the family, deriving it from Greek through Latin.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A row or line of beings or things set one after another;^[4][5] în șir “in a row, one after another”.^[4][5]
2. A string, as of beads; = șirag.^[4]
3. (dated) A line of writing or print.^[4]
4. A mountain range.^[4][5]
5. A trail left by a liquid trickling down something.^[4]
6. A succession of events, facts or units of time;^[4] în șir “running, without a break”: A plouat trei zile în șir.^[4]
7. The logical thread of ideas or facts in an account;^[4][7] fără șir “incoherent”.^[4][7]
8. (mathematics) An infinite ordered set whose elements can be matched with the natural numbers.^[4]

Word family

• șirag
• înșira
• înșirui
• deșira

Related words

• șiră

Usage notes

The plural is șiruri, rarely șire.^[5][7] Diminutives are șiruleț and șiruț.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. șir
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Graur, Alexandru (1963), Etimologii romînești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. șir
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1089
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1103
6. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. șir
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. șir
8. ^ Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. 407
9. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 443
10. ^ a b 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. 646
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Song 1:9
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Prov 5:22