aduna

Forms

aduna (present adun; third-person singular adună; past participle adunat), first conjugation.^[2][1] The Psaltirea Scheiană has forms with r: „Că amu împărații pământului adurară-se depreună” “for now the kings of the earth gathered together” (Psalm 47:4).^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin adūnō (“to unite, make one”), formed from ad- and ūnus (“one”).^[4][5][2][1] The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian adun, Megleno-Romanian dun and Istro-Romanian adurå.^[4][5][6][7] Its Romance cognates include Italian adunare, Old French auner, and Catalan aunar, Spanish aunar and Portuguese aunar.^[5][8] Ungureanu compares its use in Dante's Tuscan and in Sardinian.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500), where the verb means “to gather together”.^[4] MDA2 gives the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), and Coresi's psalter of 1570 has adunară “they gathered”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

The DA defines the basic sense as bringing together what is scattered, the opposite of împrăștia; unlike strânge, it carries no idea of pressure.^[12] From it came “to pick up, to collect” (flowers, sticks, hay) and “to save up” money or goods.^[12][2] Of people it means “to assemble, to meet”; old texts also used it for “to meet with someone” and “to unite” of a couple.^[3][10] In arithmetic it means “to add up”.^[2][3] The noun adunare took both sides: an assembly and an addition.^[5] Adunanță “assembly”, recorded in 1844, was borrowed from Italian adunanza.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – first record, with adunat and adunător, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[4]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[10]
• 1567–1568 – adunare “gathering” in Coresi's Tetraevanghel.^[4]
• 1570 – adunară in Coresi's psalter.^[11]
• 1818 – adunăciune in Budai-Deleanu.^[4]
• 1844 – adunanță “assembly”, from Italian.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To gather together what is scattered; to pick up from the ground.^[2][1]
2. To bring together from everywhere; to concentrate.^[2]
3. To collect by choosing here and there.^[2]
4. To put aside money or goods; to save up.^[2]
5. (mathematics) To add several numbers into one total.^[2]
6. Transitive and reflexive: to assemble, to come together in a group.^[2][1]

Word family

• adunare
• adunat
• adunător
• adunătură
• readuna

Related words

• Aromanian adun
• Latin adūnō

Usage notes

The saying parcă a tunat și i-a adunat “as if thunder had brought them together” is said of very different people thrown together.^[2][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 15
3. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. aduna
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. aduna
5. ^ a b c d 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. aduna
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 59
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 120
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 209
9. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 308
10. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 19
11. ^ 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 151:2
12. ^ a b Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. aduna