căsători

Forms

căsători (third-person singular present căsătorește, past participle căsătorit) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian căsător (“man with a household; married man; husband”) + -i.^[2][3][4][5] The noun itself has two explanations.^[3] Tiktin, Pușcariu, the DA and Ciorănescu derive it from a lost verb *căsa, from Vulgar Latin *casāre, a verb made on Latin casa (“hut, house”);^[3][6] DELR adds the Romance verbs Italian accasare and Spanish casar “to marry” and the Latin *casatorius that Candrea and Densusianu proposed.^[3][6] DEX and the CADE take the noun straight from casă with the suffix -ător.^[5][3]

Ciorănescu compares the sense development of the Italian and Spanish verbs, both made on the word for “house”.^[6] Wiktionary explains the meaning the same way: the noun first meant a member of a household, and the verb “to become a member of a household” came to mean “to marry”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the verb, like căsător, to 1551–1553, and records an old sense “to settle, make one's home” beside “to marry”.^[3] Tiktin's first record is a Gospel text of those years, at Matthew 4:13.^[4] The Pravila of Moldavia from the time of Vasile Lupu already uses it of marriage, ruling that certain persons may not marry again.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to settle, take up residence” died out, and “to marry” remained.^[3] The reflexive a se căsători (cu cineva) “to get married (to someone)” is the usual construction; the transitive “to marry off”, said of parents giving a son or daughter in marriage, was rare by the 1950s.^[8][2] The verb is neutral as to sex, beside a se mărita (of the woman) and a se însura (of the man).^[8] An old dictionary cited in the DA glosses kăsătoresku-mă with Latin nūbō.^[2]

The noun căsătorie “marriage” is recorded from about 1566, and the participle căsătorit “married” and its negative necăsătorit “unmarried” are common adjectives.^[3][2] Șăineanu also gave a figurative sense “to join, associate”.^[9]

Timeline

• 1551–1553 – căsător and the verb căsători, the first records.^[3][4]
• c. 1566 – căsătorie “marriage”.^[3]
• 1691–1697 – the adjective căsătoresc “conjugal”.^[3]
• 1776 – necăsătoriți “the unmarried” in a Menaion.^[2]
• 1900 – the abstract noun căsătorit “marrying”.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive) To marry, get married: s-a căsătorit cu o colegă “he married a colleague”.^[5][7][1]
2. (reflexive, reciprocal) Of two people: to get married to each other.^[5][1]
3. (transitive) To marry off, give in marriage; to join two people in marriage.^[5][8]
4. (obsolete) To settle, make one's home somewhere.^[3]

Word family

• căsătorie
• căsătorit
• necăsătorit
• căsătoresc

Related words

• casă
• Latin casa

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. căsători
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. casă
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. căsători
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 160
6. ^ 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. casă
7. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 332
8. ^ 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, 371
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 109