blestem

Forms

blestem n (plural blesteme)^[1] Old and popular texts write blăstem and, in Moldavia, blăstăm.^[2][3] A text of 1604 has „Am pus și blăstăm, ca să fie afurisit și proclet” “I have also laid a curse, that he be excommunicated and accursed”.^[4] Besides the plurals blesteme and blestemuri, the Bucharest Bible of 1688 has blestemi.^[2][5]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Romanian blestema (“to curse”), as the DA, DEX and DELR explain it.^[4][6][7] The verb continues Vulgar Latin *blastēmō, a form of Late Latin blasphēmō (“to revile, blaspheme”) with /t/ for /f/, which Spanish lastimar also shows; Italian biasimare and French blâmer come from the same verb.^[8] Latin blasphēmia (“reviling, blasphemy”) is from Ancient Greek βλασφημία (blasphēmía, “slander, blasphemy”).^[9][1]

Ciorănescu calls the noun apparently a postverbal derivative, but notes that Pascu takes it from a Latin *blastemium in place of blasphēmium.^[8][10] Tiktin also considered that Latin noun, or a noun from blasphēmus (“reviling”), with the change of /f/ to /t/ by dissimilation, as in Italian bestemmia.^[2] Wiktionary gives both views.^[1]

The noun survives south of the Danube: Aromanian blãstem and Megleno-Romanian blăstem.^[7][11][12] Its Romance parallels include Old French blastenge and Old Occitan blastenh.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form blăstem in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, dated by DELR to about 1500.^[7] The Codicele Voronețean, which MDA2 gives as the first record, sets it against blessing: „Dintr-același rost ies [...] și blăstemul” “from the same mouth come forth [...] and cursing”.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb meant “to revile, blaspheme”, and Italian bestemmia still means “blasphemy”.^[9][13] In Romanian the noun names a curse: the calling down of misfortune or of God's anger on someone, often the opposite of binecuvântare or blagoslovenie.^[4][6] From the act it passed to its result, the misfortune that falls on the cursed person.^[4][5] A carte de blestem was a letter of excommunication.^[2][5]

A proverb recorded by Miron Costin says that the curse of the poor does not fall on the trees, that is, it does not go unfulfilled: Blestemul de la săraci nu cade pe copaci.^[2][4] In tales and legends the word came to mean a spell cast on a person or a thing.^[3][6]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – blăstem in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[7]
• 1560–1561 – the adjective blestemat “accursed, wicked” in Coresi's Tetraevanghel.^[7]
• c. 1563–1583 – blăstemul in the Codicele Voronețean.^[5][4]
• 1604 – blăstăm in a text of that year.^[4]
• 1660 – blestem glosses Slavonic анаѳима “anathema” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1668–1670 – blăstămăciune “curse”.^[7]
• 1688 – the plurals blesteme and blestemi in the Bucharest Bible.^[15][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A curse: the calling down of divine anger or of a misfortune on someone; the words of such an imprecation.^[6][16][1]
2. A misfortune put down to divine anger, a bad fate one cannot escape.^[6][17]
3. (in tales and legends) A spell cast on someone or something.^[6][18]

Related words

• blestema
• blestemat
• blasfemie
• Aromanian blãstem

Usage notes

The stress also falls on the first syllable, bléstem.^[6] The phrase a-și face blestem cu cineva means “to torment someone, to treat someone badly”.^[17][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. blestem
3. ^ 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, 249
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. blestem
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, 217
6. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 108
7. ^ a b c d e f 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. blestema
8. ^ a b 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. blestema
9. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. blasphemia
10. ^ 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, 52
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 213
12. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 202
13. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. bestemmia
14. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. blestem
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Num 5:23
16. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. blestem
17. ^ a b Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. blestem
18. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 84