bogăție

Forms

bogăție f (plural bogății)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian bogat + -ie, from the adjective “rich” with the suffix of abstract nouns.^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} The adjective is from Old Church Slavonic богатъ (bogatŭ, “rich”), a derivative of Common Slavic *bogъ (“wealth, well-being”).^[6][7] Ciorănescu notes that no Romance language kept the Latin word for “rich”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to Coresi's Tetraevanghel of 1560–1561, in the sense “great wealth”.^[6] Coresi's psalter of 1570 has it at Psalm 36:17 and the Psaltirea Scheiană at the same verse.^[8][5] The older abstract noun bogătate, from the same adjective, appears earlier, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of about 1500–1520.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was material: possessions and great wealth, often in the plural, in opposition to sărăcie “poverty”.^[2][5] The DA quotes Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură on the saints who left wealth, glory and food behind, the Bible of 1688 and Dosoftei's psalter.^[2] The plural also names precious objects: in Creangă's tale the palace with all its riches turns back into the old man's hovel.^[2][9]

From “wealth” the word was extended to abundance of anything, fruitfulness, as in Maiorescu's bogăția de idei “wealth of ideas”.^[2] Modern dictionaries add the resources of a country, its natural wealth, and the abundance of spiritual values, such as ideas or words.^[4][3] Bogăție replaced the older bogătate, which DELR labels obsolete and Ciorănescu records as Transylvanian.^[6][7] Proverbs contrast it with poverty: sărăcia e zid de piatră și bogăția gard de nuiele “poverty is a stone wall and wealth a wattle fence”.^[10]

Timeline

• 1560–1561 – first record, in Coresi's Tetraevanghel.^[6]
• 1570 – in Coresi's psalter, Psalm 36:17.^[8]
• 16th century – in the Psaltirea Scheiană and other texts printed in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni.^[5][3]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic words for abundance and treasure.^[11]
• 1688 – frequent in the Bucharest Bible, as at Matthew 13:22.^[12]
• 1801 – bogatíe in Klein's dictionary.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large quantity of material goods, wealth; in the plural, precious objects, riches; by extension, a large quantity of anything.^[4][9]
2. The condition of a rich person, affluence.^[4][3]
3. The natural resources of a country or region: Pădurile sunt cea mai mare bogăție a acestui ținut.^[4][3]
4. An abundance and variety of spiritual values, as of ideas or words.^[4]

Related words

• bogat
• bogătate
• bogătaș
• îmbogăți

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. bogăție
3. ^ 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, 223
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 110
5. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. bogăție
6. ^ 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. bogat
7. ^ a b c 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. bogat
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 36:17
9. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 256
10. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. bogăție
11. ^ 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. bogăție
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 13:22
13. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 316