culme

Forms

culme f (plural culmi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin culmen (“top, summit; roof”), a contracted form of columen.^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} Ciorănescu thinks it probably passed through a form Vulgar Latin *culmis.^[2] The bookish variants culmine and culmină are Latinizing forms built on the oblique stem ⟨culmin-⟩ of the Latin noun.^[3] The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *kelH- (“to rise, be tall”).^[1]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian culme (also the masculine culmu) and Megleno-Romanian culmi.^[2][3][7] Candrea and Densusianu explain the Aromanian masculine as a change of gender within that dialect, with no need for a Latin *culmum.^[8] Its Romance cognates include Italian colmo, Spanish cumbre, Portuguese cume and Old French colme.^[2][9] Ciorănescu also lists French comble, which the DHLF derives from cumulus (“heap”), with the sense “top” taken over from the Latin word.^[2][10] Albanian borrowed the same Latin word as Albanian kulm.^[11][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is of 1475, collected in Mihăilă's dictionary of Old Romanian.^[3][12] In Romanian texts the word appears in Grigore Ureche's chronicle, in the sense “ridge of a hill”: „Au arat pe o culme de deal la Botoșeni” “they ploughed on a hill ridge at Botoșeni”.^[4][13]

Semantic evolution

From the ridge of a hill or mountain the word passed to the ridge of a roof and the beam under it, and to the top of a wall; in the old language it was also the highest point of a heavenly body's course.^[3][13] A Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1660 glosses Slavonic грива “mane” with culmea, and the DA and MDA2 record the sense “a horse's mane”.^[14][13][4] The figurative sense “highest degree, apogee” is well established by the 19th century: Bălcescu writes of the Ottoman empire beginning to decline from the summit of its greatness.^[12] Hence Asta-i culmea! and Culmea culmilor! “That beats everything!”.^[5]

In peasant houses the word names a long pole fixed under the ceiling on which clothes and cloths are hung; the Lexicon de la Buda (1825) already has this sense beside “summit”.^[15][12] Regional senses include the rows of sticks on which bees build their combs and a striped woven cloth hung on the walls.^[3][4] The neologisms culmina, culminant and culminație came from French in the 1830s and 1840s.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1475 – the first record, in Mihăilă's dictionary of Old Romanian.^[3][12]
• c. 1642–1647 – culme de deal “hill ridge” in Grigore Ureche's chronicle.^[4][13]
• 1660 – culmea glossing Slavonic “mane” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – culmile in the Bucharest Bible.^[16]
• 1825 – “summit” and “pole for hanging linen” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[15]
• 1832 – culminație, from French.^[3]
• 1837 – culmina, from French.^[3]
• 1840 – culminant, from French.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The top or long ridge of a mountain or hill; also the highest point a heavenly body reaches in its course.^[5][4][1]
2. The ridge of a roof; regionally, the beam on which the rafters rest.^[4][13]
3. (figurative) The highest degree, the climax or apogee: la culme “extremely”.^[5][4]
4. (popular) A long pole fixed to the beams of a peasant house, from which clothes and household things hang.^[5][17]

Word family

• culmiș
• culmar
• culmiță
• culmuliță
• culminăriță
• aculma

Related words

• culmina
• culminant
• culminație
• Aromanian culme
• Latin culmen

Usage notes

Asta-i culmea! and Culmea culmilor! express indignation or astonishment at something outrageous.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. culme
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. culme
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, 568
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. 258
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 84
8. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 375
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
12. ^ 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. culme
13. ^ 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. culme
14. ^ a b 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. culmea
15. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 153
16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 4 Mac 14:16
17. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 85