brumă

Forms

brumă f (plural brume)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin brūma (“winter solstice; winter”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word goes back to *breuima (“shortest”) (of the day), an old superlative of brevis (“short”).^[2][6][7]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian brumã and Megleno-Romanian brumă.^{[8][9][10][11][3]} The Latin word continues in all the Romance languages except Sardinian.^[2][12] Only Romanian, some northern Italian dialects (Muggia and Verzasca) and the loan in Albanian, brymë, have the sense “hoarfrost”; the western forms mean “fog”: French brume, Occitan bruma, Catalan broma, Spanish bruma and Portuguese bruma.^[2][3] Friulian and some northern Italian dialects have “autumn” instead.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to about 1500, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[2] It is Psalm 77:52 in the early 16th-century psalter, and the verse recurs in the other 16th-century psalters.^[13] In the 1688 Bible it reads: „Ucise cu grindină viia lor și dudele lor cu bruma” “he killed their vines with hail and their mulberry trees with frost”.^[14] Coresi's psalter of 1577, which MDA2 gives as the first record, has the plural in a canticle: „Blagosloviți brumele și zăpăzile” “bless the frosts and the snows”.^[4][15]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the word named the winter solstice and then winter.^[6] Romanian moved from the season to the frost that comes with it.^[16][2] Scriban thought that Latin pruina (“hoarfrost”) influenced the new sense.^[17] The bloom on plums and grapes is named after the frost.^[3][5]

Among the figurative uses, ce brumă de… or ce bruma… means “the little that…”, as in Odobescu and Caragiale.^[15][14] Bătut de brumă “beaten by frost” describes someone gone grey; it also means an old bachelor.^[15][4] The regional compound floarea-brumei names the autumn crocus.^[18]

Brumar “November or October” is first recorded in 1447, as a personal name.^[2] DA and DEX form it on brumă, while Candrea–Densusianu, the DDA and Tiktin trace it to a Latin *brūmārius.^[2] The verb bruma “to cover with frost” is recorded from 1733 and brumărel “October” from 1719.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – first record, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 77:52).^[2][13]
• 1570 – Coresi's psalter has the word at Psalms 77:52 and 118:83.^[19]
• 1577 – brumele “the frosts” in Coresi's psalter.^[4][15]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible.^[14][20]
• 1719 – brumărel “October”.^[2]
• 1733 – the verb bruma.^[2]
• 1839 – brumăriu “frost-coloured, grey”, also a grape variety.^[2]
• 1868-1869 – brumatic “frosty” in Eminescu.^[2]
• 1894 – îmbruma “to cover with frost”.^[2]
• 1898 – brumar as the name of a month of the French Republican calendar, from French brumaire.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Hoarfrost, white frost: fine ice crystals formed at night, in spring and autumn, when water vapour freezes on plants, the ground and objects.^[5][4][1]
2. (popular) rime.^[5][4]
3. The thin whitish bloom on some fruits, such as plums and grapes.^[5][4]
4. (figurative) A small amount of something: ce brumă de bani avea “what little money he had”.^[5][4]

Word family

• bruma
• brumar
• brumatic
• brumărea
• brumărel
• brumăriță
• brumos
• brumăriu
• brumat
• îmbruma

Related words

• Aromanian brumã
• Latin brūma

Usage notes

The plural is brume, rarely brumi.^[4] DLRLC records a separate, rare brumă “fog, mist”, a Gallicism after French brume.^[18]

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 l m n o p q 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. brumă
3. ^ 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. brumă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 249
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 120
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 219
9. ^ 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, 53
10. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 97
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 45
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1335
13. ^ 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 77:52
14. ^ 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. brumă
15. ^ a b c d 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. brumă
16. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 79
17. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 198
18. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 282
19. ^ 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 118:83
20. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 118:83