asasin

Forms

asasin m (plural asasini, feminine equivalent asasină)^[1] DELR records the old form assasén in Barac's text of 1801, where the plural is glossed: „Assaseni (adecă ucigători întru ascuns)” “assassins (that is, secret killers)”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French assassin, with Italian assassino named beside it by DELR, Tiktin and DN.^{[2][4][5][6][7][1]} The DA called it a Gallicism.^[3]

The French word was borrowed from Italian in the 16th century, first as “hired killer”, a sense Dante already gave the Italian word.^[8] The Italian word first named the members of a Muslim sect in Syria who killed Christian leaders at the time of the Crusades, and is from the Arabic plural حَشَّاشِين (ḥaššāšīn, “hashish users”).^[2][1] Scriban and the DA explain the name by the hashish the members were said to take before their killings.^[9][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Ioan Barac's Arghir of 1801, as assasén, explained as “secret killers”.^[2][4][3] MDA2 dates it by the 1852 edition of the same work.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense of a person who kills by design, and the DA added that it is also used as an adjective, as in mână asasină “a murderous hand”.^[3][2] CADE gave a figurative priviri asasine “killing looks”, and Costinescu in 1870 the French-style ochi assassini, eyes that wound.^[10][11] DEX 2009 has a second sense, the sect itself, in the plural.^[6]

The derivatives came from French too: asasina in 1840, which also took a jocular sense “to bore, annoy greatly”, and asasinat “murder” in 1847.^[2]

Timeline

• 1801 – assasén in Ioan Barac's Arghir, the first record.^[2][4]
• 1840 – the verb asasina, from French.^[2]
• 1847 – asasinat “murder”, in Heliade-Rădulescu.^[2]
• 1852 – in the edition of Barac's Arghir that MDA2 cites.^[7]
• 1870 – asasinant “annoying”, and ochi assassini “killing eyes” in Costinescu.^[2][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. An assassin: a person who kills someone with premeditation; a murderer, killer.^[6][7][1]
2. (in the masculine plural) The Assassins, a secret Shiite Muslim sect active in the 11th–13th centuries in what are now Iran, Syria and Lebanon.^[6]

Adjective

1. (rare) murderous, killing, mostly in mână asasină.^[2][3]

Word family

• asasina
• asasinat

Related words

• French assassin

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. asasin
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. asasin
4. ^ 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. asasin
5. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. asasin
6. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 65
7. ^ 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, 107
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 127
10. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. asasin
11. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 75