cerne

Forms

cerne (first person singular present cern, third-person subjunctive cearnă, past participle cernut), 3rd conjugation^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cernō (“to sift, distinguish, decide”), with the same conjugation class.^{[3][4][5][1][6]} The Latin verb goes back to *krei- (“to sift, separate”) and is related to Ancient Greek κρίνω (krī́nō, “to separate, judge”).^[7][1]

The verb survives south of the Danube as Aromanian nțernu, with a prefix /n-/ added later, and in Istria as Istro-Romanian cernu.^[3][8][9][1] Its Romance cognates include Spanish cerner, Portuguese cernir, Occitan cerner and Old French serdre.^[3][6] The Italian verb cernere is a learned word.^[10][11] DELR takes the bookish sense “to examine, to distinguish” for a calque on Latin.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and DELR date the first record to 1581, in Coresi's Omiliar.^[2][4] The sense there is the everyday one, passing flour or other ground matter through a sieve.^[2] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has the subjunctive cearnă in Luke 22:31, where Satan asks to sift the apostles like wheat.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From sifting flour, sand and the like, the verb passed to anything that falls as if through a sieve: winter “sifts” clouds of snow in Alecsandri, and trees let rays of sunlight “sift” through their leaves in Vlahuță.^[2][13] Used impersonally, cerne means that a fine rain is falling;^[5] DA records the saying nu plouă, numai cerne “it isn't raining, only drizzling” from Năsăud.^[13][5]

The figurative senses “to distinguish” and “to sort out the valuable part” are the bookish ones that DELR explains through Latin.^[4][5] The proverb sita nouă cerne bine “a new sieve sifts well” is the Romanian counterpart of “a new broom sweeps clean”.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1581 – first record, in Coresi's Omiliar.^[2][4]
• 1688 – cearnă in Luke 22:31 of the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1822 – cernător “one who sifts”.^[4]
• 1871 – the nouns cernut and cernătură “sifting”.^[4]
• 1885 – cernută, the name of a peasant dance.^[4]
• 1889 – regional precerne “to sift several times”.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sift: to pass flour, sand or another fine material through a sieve or ciur to separate the finer part or remove impurities;^[5][15][1] a cerne făina “to sift the flour”.^[5][15][1]
2. (figurative) To distinguish, to make out.^[5][15]
3. (impersonal, figurative) To drizzle, to rain finely; compare bura.^[5][13]
4. (figurative) To pick out the good, valid part of a study or doctrine and leave the rest; to discern.^[5][15]
5. (reflexive, a se cerne) To filter through, as light through leaves or snow through the air.^[2][13]

Word family

• cernător
• cernătură
• cernut
• precerne

Related words

• discerne
• ciur
• Aromanian nțernu
• Latin cernō

Usage notes

The proverb sita nouă cerne bine means that something new works well at first, and cine nu vrea să frământe, toată ziua cerne is said of someone who avoids a task by endless preparations.^[14][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cerne
3. ^ 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. cerne
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. cerne
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 173
6. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 57
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 786
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)
10. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Luke 22:31
13. ^ 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. cerne
14. ^ a b Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 135
15. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 365
16. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. cerne