bărbat

Forms

bărbat m (plural bărbați)^[1] The adjective has a feminine bărbată, plural bărbate: „Zoe, Zoe, fii bărbată” “Zoe, Zoe, be brave” (Caragiale).^[2] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written бэрбат.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin barbātus (“bearded”), an adjective formed on barba (“beard”) with the suffix -ātus.^{[3][4][5][1][6]} The other Romance languages kept the Latin sense “bearded”: Italian barbato, Occitan barbat, Catalan barbat, Spanish barbado and Portuguese barbado.^[4][3][7] The sense “man” is not a Romanian innovation, however: Latin glosses already use the word for “men”, and Candrea and Densusianu quote a gloss that explains the word by viris (“men”).^[8][4] The REW explains the shift by the beard as the sign of full manhood, as against the beardless eunuch.^[7]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian bãrbat, Megleno-Romanian bărbat and Istro-Romanian bărbåt.^{[4][3][9][10][11][1]} Modern Greek βαρβάτος (varvátos) “uncastrated; vigorous” goes back to Hellenistic βαρβᾶτος (barbâtos), itself from the Latin word, and Albanian varvát comes from the Greek.^[4][12][1] Scriban took the Greek word from Romanian;^[13] Ciorănescu calls that view unjustified.^[13][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are names: a man called Bărbat appears in a document of 1262, the date DELR and Tiktin give.^[3][14] Constantinescu's dictionary of personal names lists the voivode Bărbat, brother of Litovoi, in 1279, and a Vlach named Barbat in the 11th century.^[15] As a common noun meaning “man” it is first found in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, already in the first verse of the first psalm.^[3][16] MDA2 dates its first record to the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583).^[5]

Semantic evolution

The oldest texts use the word for an adult man as against women and children: the Bible of 1688 counts those who ate as „bărbați ca la 5000, fără muieri și copii” “about five thousand men, besides women and children”.^[14] Beside this, it meant “husband” from the 16th century on: the Codicele Voronețean tells wives to submit to their husbands.^[17] The proverb ce știe satul, nu știe bărbatul “what the village knows, the husband does not” plays on this sense.^[14][18] A third sense, “male animal”, is quoted by Tiktin from a natural history; for small animals the diminutive bărbătuș is more usual.^[14]

The adjective means “manly, brave”, and in older and regional use also “hard-working, active”; of animals it meant “lively, ardent”.^[17][19] The Hațeg glossary records it as “industrious”.^[20] Today the adjective is rare.^[19]

Romanian formed a large family on the word: bărbătesc “manly, male” (1551–1553), bărbătește “like a man” (1566), bărbăție “manhood, courage” and îmbărbăta “to encourage”.^[3][4] Candrea traced Hungarian borbáth “active” to Romanian.^[4]

Timeline

• 1262 – Bărbat as a personal name, the first record.^[3][14]
• 1279 – Bărbat, a voivode and brother of Litovoi.^[15]
• early 16th century – bărbatul “the man” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[3][16]
• 1551–1553 – bărbătesc “male” in a Slavonic–Romanian Gospel.^[3]
• c. 1563–1583 – bărbat in the Codicele Voronețean.^[5][17]
• 1566 – bărbătește “manfully” in Coresi.^[3]
• c. 1650 – bărbăcior “male (animal)”.^[3]
• 1681 – bărbătoaie, later “mannish woman”.^[3]
• 1688 – bărbați “men” in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. An adult man, a male person as distinguished from a woman or a child; also a grown man in full possession of his strength and judgment.^[19][5][1]
2. A husband: Bărbatul ei lucrează la oraș.^[19][2]
3. (dated) The male of an animal.^[14][5]

Adjective

1. (rare) Brave, bold; strong.^[19][2][1]
2. (rare, regional) Industrious, active.^[19][20]

Word family

• bărbăcior
• bărbătesc
• bărbătește
• bărbătoaie
• bărbătos
• bărbătuș
• bărbățel
• bărbăție
• bărbățime
• îmbărbăta
• îmbărbătător

Related words

• barbă
• Aromanian bãrbat
• Latin barbātus

Usage notes

With a possessive the word is often joined to it in speech: bărbatu-meu “my husband”.^[14] A lua de bărbat means “to take as a husband, to marry”.^[18] The rare phrase deal bărbat “steep slope” was derived by Giuglea from Latin vervactum (“fallow land”);^[1] Ciorănescu doubts it and compares Spanish bravo.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 217
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. bărbat
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. bărbat
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 183
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. barbātus
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 946
8. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. bărbat
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 198
10. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 67
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 33
12. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, p. s.v. βαρβάτος
13. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 159
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. bărbat
15. ^ a b Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. bărbat
16. ^ 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 1:1
17. ^ a b c 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. bărbat
18. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. bărbat
19. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 95
20. ^ a b Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 305