curând

Forms

curând (adjective: feminine singular curândă, masculine plural curânzi, feminine and neuter plural curânde)^[1] An old and popular variant is curund, which the Ciobanu psalter writes in the 16th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin currendō (“by running”), a form of the gerund of currō (“to run”).^{[4][2][5][6][1]} Wiktionary notes that it can also be read as the gerund of cure, an old and regional form of curge “to flow”.^[1] Candrea held that the Romanian sounds call for a Latin variant *currando.^[4]

It survives in Aromanian curundu and Megleno-Romanian curǫn.^[4][7][8] Adverbs of the same origin and sense are recorded in the Venetian acorando and corando, in Sicilian kurennu and in Friulian curind.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean of about 1563–1583 (Acts 22:18).^[2][9] Coresi's psalter of 1570 has curînd eight times, and the Ciobanu psalter of about 1573 the spelling curund.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

The old sense was still “running”, from which came “quickly” and “soon, before long”.^[4] In old texts the word was also an adjective, în curândă vreme “in a short time” and de curândă vreme “a short while ago”, used by Ureche and Nicolae Costin.^[9][2] Today the temporal sense “soon” leads;^[5] “quickly” survives in mai curând “rather, sooner”.^[5] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss curând with Old Church Slavonic скоро (skoro) and Old Church Slavonic абие (abie) “at once”.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – first record, in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2][9]
• 1570 – curînd in Coresi's psalter.^[10]
• c. 1573 – curund in the Ciobanu psalter.^[3]
• 1649 – curînd and curund in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]

Meanings

Adverb

1. soon, shortly, before long;^[5][2][1] în curând “soon”, de curând “recently”, pe curând “see you soon”.^[5][2][1]
2. quickly, fast;^[5] mai curând “rather, sooner”.^[5]

Adjective

1. (obsolete) Quick, swift;^[2] în curândă vreme “in a short time”.^[2][9]

Related words

• cure
• curge
• Aromanian curundu

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 578
3. ^ a b c 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 68:21
4. ^ a b c d e 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. curînd
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 262
6. ^ a b 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, 73
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
8. ^ 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
9. ^ 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. curând
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 36:2
11. ^ 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. curînd