dărâma

Forms

dărâma (third-person singular present dărâmă, past participle dărâmat, third-person subjunctive dărâme) 1st conjugation^[1] Variants are dărăma, the Moldavian dărma and the old derâma: „Turnuri nalte cad, se darmă” “tall towers fall, they crumble”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dērāmō (“to strip of branches”), formed on rāmus (“branch”).^{[3][4][5][2][1]} DELR notes that the verb is attested in Jerome's psalter in the sense “to uproot”, a reading later replaced.^[3] The earliest Romanian senses, “to lop branches, to cut trees”, support this source.^[3][4]

The verb survives south of the Danube: Aromanian dãrãm, meaning “to destroy, to crush, to crumble”.^[3][6] DELR thinks the sense “to crumble” may come from Albanian dërmoj.^[3] The Albanian verb was taken by Meyer as a loan from the same Latin verb, but Çabej derived it from an Albanian word for “crumb”.^[3][1] Romance cognates are Dalmatian dramur (“to slaughter”), Old French deramer, Italian diramare, Spanish derramar and Portuguese derramar.^[3][4][1][7]

Some scholars doubted this source.^[4] Pușcariu proposed *dērīmō (“to dig under”), which the REW accepted, and Meyer *derumō.^[4][2][8] Russu and Brâncuș saw a substrate word related to the Albanian verb.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Grigore Ureche's chronicle (1642–1647) has the first record, in the old sense: in a dry summer the cattle had nothing to graze, „de le-au fost dărămând frunză” “so leaves were cut down for them”.^[3][9][2]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant cutting or breaking off branches, leaves or fruit, and then mowing.^[3][9] An old law code makes whoever kills an animal by accident while lopping branches in a forest give an animal in return.^[9][2] From trees felled to the ground the sense spread to walls, towers and houses pulled down, the main sense today.^[4][3][10] Figuratively it means “to crush, to destroy” a person or a hope.^[2][5]

The old sense survives in the regions: around Hațeg a dărâma lemne is to cut branches.^[11] Șăineanu saw the derivative dărâmătură, first a heap of fallen branches, as keeping part of the first meaning.^[10][3]

Timeline

• 1642-1647 – dărămând frunză “cutting leaves” in Ureche's chronicle, the first record.^[3][2]
• 1688 – dărâma in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1767 – the verbal noun dărmat.^[3]
• 1786 – dărămătură “heap of lopped branches” in a forestry code.^[3]
• 1833 – dărmător “demolisher” in Asachi.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To knock down, to demolish a building;^[5][13][1] (figurative) to destroy, to crush.^[5][13][1]
2. (reflexive) To collapse, to fall into ruin.^[5][13]
3. (rare) To break off branches or leaves from a tree.^[5][13]
4. (regional) To mow grass or grain.^[5][13]

Word family

• dărâmat
• dărâmătură
• dărâmare
• dărâmător

Related words

• ram
• Aromanian dãrãm

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. dărâmá
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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. dărâma
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. dărîma
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. 272
6. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 379
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2578
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2584
9. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. dărâma
10. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 190
11. ^ Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 314
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Isa 9:11
13. ^ 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, 606