amărî

Forms

amărî (third-person singular present amărăște, past participle amărât) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is usually taken as inherited from Vulgar Latin *amāriō, a form beside Latin amārēscō (“to become bitter”), from amārus (“bitter”): so Pușcariu, the REW, the DA, DEX and MDA2.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The verb survives south of the Danube: Aromanian amãrãscu.^[6][7]

Ciorănescu objects that a Latin verb would have ended in ⟨-ări⟩, and that the final ⟨-î⟩ points to a verb formed in Romanian on amar, like pârî from pâră and ocărî from ocară, following Graur.^[7] He also rejects the attempts to explain the vowel by a Latin form with /rr/: blending with a Germanic verb (Giuglea, Gamillscheg) or with Latin marrubium (Brüch).^[7] DELR gives the derivation from the adjective as the view of Cihac, Hasdeu and Ciorănescu beside the Latin one.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is a fragment of Coresi's Molitvenic of 1564.^[3] The verb is in Coresi's psalter of 1570, Psalm 43, and the Psaltirea Scheiană (1573–1578) has the variant amări.^[8][2]

Semantic evolution

Both senses, the taste and the grief, are old: Candrea and Densusianu gloss the verb “to make bitter, to afflict”.^[9] The figurative sense is the common one, especially in phrases such as a amărî viața cuiva “to make someone's life bitter”.^[3][10] In popular speech the reflexive also means to live a hard, wretched life.^[3][11]

Its participle amărât became an adjective and noun, “wretched, poor; a poor devil”.^[7]

Timeline

• 1564 – Coresi's Molitvenic, the first record.^[3]
• 1570 – Coresi's psalter, Psalm 43.^[8]
• 1573–1578 – the variant amări in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[2]
• 1581 – amărâtor “causing grief” in Coresi's Gospel homilies.^[12]
• 1680 – amărâtură “grief” in Dosoftei's psalter.^[12]
• 1688 – amărâră and amărât in the Bucharest Bible.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To make or become bitter in taste: Fierea a amărât toată carnea peștelui. “The gall made all the fish meat bitter.”^[4][3]
2. (figurative) To sadden, to grieve, to upset;^[4][3][1] a amărî zilele cuiva “to make someone's days bitter”.^[4][3][1]
3. (reflexive) To be grieved, to fret;^[3][11] (popular) to live a hard life.^[3][11]

Word family

• amărât
• amărâtor

Related words

• amar
• amărăciune
• Aromanian amãrãscu

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. amărî
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. 1, 50
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 33
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 400
6. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 33
7. ^ 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. amar
8. ^ 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 43:3
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 13
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 72
11. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. amărî
12. ^ a b 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. amar
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 77:45