cutremura

Forms

cutremura (third-person singular present cutremură, past participle cutremurat, third-person subjunctive cutremure) 1st conjugation^[1] Old and regional variants are cutrămura and cutrimura;^[2][3][4] -trăm- is the Banat form.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *contremulō, a Latin verb not recorded in writing, formed with con- on Late Latin tremulō (“to tremble”), from Latin tremulus (“trembling”), from tremō (“to tremble”).^{[2][5][3][6][1]} DA and DELR compare the recorded contremō and contremīscō “to tremble all over”, and contremulus “trembling all over”, which Tiktin cites from Varro.^[7][2][4] The same Latin tremulō gave tremura.^[8] DER also allows a Romanian formation on that verb with an expressive ⟨cu-⟩.^[5]

It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian cutreambur (also cutreamur) and Megleno-Romanian cutrumur.^[5][2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century: cutremurat at Psalm 76:18.^[2][10] The other psalters of the 16th century use it where the Hurmuzaki text sometimes has scutura instead: „Cutremurași pământul” “thou hast made the earth to tremble” (Psalm 59:2).^[7][11]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant at first “to make shake” and, in the reflexive, “to shake, quake”, of the earth and the sky as well as of the body.^[7][4] Coresi tells of a spirit that shook a possessed man, „de-l cutremura”.^[7] The Bible of 1688 has God say „Eu cutremur ceriul și pământul” “I shake the heavens and the earth”.^[4] From shaking it passed to the shudder of fear: Antim wrote that a man's deeds „îl cutremură” “make him shudder”.^[7] The sense “to terrify” grew out of this one.^[7][6] In the reflexive, of the ground, it is the usual verb for an earthquake, named by the noun cutremur, recorded from 1551–1553.^[2][6]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – cutremurat in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2][10]
• 1551–1553 – the noun cutremur “trembling; earthquake” in a Slavonic–Romanian Gospel.^[2]
• 1570 – cutremuri in Coresi's Psalter (Psalm 54:5).^[12]
• 1648 – cutremurătură “shaking” in the New Testament of Bălgrad.^[2]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible: Eu cutremur ceriul și pământul (Haggai 2:22).^[4]
• 1691–1697 – cutremurător “terrifying” in Teodor Corbea's dictionary.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive; of the earth) To quake, to be shaken by an earthquake.^[6][3]
2. (reflexive and transitive) To shake, sway, or make shake or sway.^[6][1]
3. (figurative; reflexive and transitive) To shudder, start, or make someone shudder; by extension, to be terrified or to terrify.^[6][3][1]

Word family

• cutremur
• cutremurător
• cutremurătură

Related words

• tremura
• tremur
• Aromanian cutreambur

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. cutremura
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 586
4. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cutremura
5. ^ 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. cutremura
6. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 265
7. ^ 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. cutremura
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 102
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 345
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 76:18
11. ^ 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 59:2
12. ^ 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 54:5