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ciudat

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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word ciudat

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1500–1520 Psaltirea Hurmuzaki More words from the 15th century
Borrowed from
Bulgarian чудат

Pronunciation

  • /t͡ʃuˈdat/[1]

Forms

ciudat m or n (feminine singular ciudată, masculine plural ciudați, feminine/neuter plural ciudate)[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Bulgarian чудат (čudat, “wonderful; strange”), as Pascu proposed in 1931; the DA, Tiktin, MDA2 and DEX follow him.[2][3][4][5][1] CADE and Ciorănescu derive it in Romanian from ciudă “wonder” and only compare the Bulgarian word.[6][7][8] DELR adds that it may have been formed after minunat “wonderful”, and gives both views.[6] The noun is from Old Church Slavonic чоудо (čudo, “miracle”).[6][7][9] Wiktionary notes a possible link with Albanian çuditshëm.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where ciudat means “wonderful, marvellous”: „Doamne... că ciudat e numele tău prespre tot pământul” “Lord, how wonderful is thy name over all the earth”.[10][2][6] Tiktin notes a personal name Ciudatu in a document of 1525.[3]

Semantic evolution

The old sense was “wonderful, miraculous”: where other psalters have minunat, the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki has ciudat, and Coresi speaks of the “most wonderful mystery” prea ciudata a sa taină.[2][4] DELR records preaciudat “most wonderful” from 1561, modelled on the Slavonic.[6] From “arousing wonder” the sense moved to “out of the ordinary, strange, bizarre”, the only common sense today;[2][4][3] “admirable” survives regionally.[2][4][3] The DA also records “sullen, moody” of people.[2] The noun ciudățenie “oddity” is recorded from 1818.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 1500-1520 – ciudat “wonderful” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.[10][6]
  • 1525 – the personal name Ciudatu.[3]
  • 1561 – preaciudat “most wonderful”.[6]
  • 1649 – ciudat in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.[11]
  • 1818 – ciudățenie “oddity”.[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. strange, odd, bizarre: out of the ordinary, surprising by its look or behaviour: Am avut un vis ciudat.[5][4][1]
  2. (rare) Original, unusual.[4]
  3. (archaic) miraculous, wonderful;[4][2] (regional) admirable.[4][2]

Adverb

  1. strangely: Se uita ciudat la noi.[2][3]

Word family

  • ciudățenie
  • preaciudat
  • ciudă
  • minunat
  • Bulgarian чудат (čudat)

Usage notes

Ce ciudat! and lucru ciudat! are common exclamations: “how strange!”.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ciudat
  3. ^ 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. ciudat
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 420
  5. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 191
  6. ^ 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. ciudă
  7. ^ 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. ciudă
  8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 289
  9. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
  10. ^ 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 8:9
  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. ciudat

Related etymologies

  • da · also from Bulgarian
  • lin · also from Bulgarian
  • grijă · also from Bulgarian
  • ba · also from Bulgarian
  • război · also from Bulgarian
  • grozav · also from Bulgarian
  • păstra · also from Bulgarian
  • bolnav · also from Bulgarian
Cite this entry

“Ciudat.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/ciudat. Accessed 11 Nov. 2026.

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