daună

Forms

daună f (plural daune)^[1] The first records keep the Latin consonants: DELR's earliest is the plural damne in Petru Maior (1816), and Heliade Rădulescu writes damnă: „Unind şi lângă damnă adaogă şi frica” “and to the damage it adds fear as well”.^[2][3] DELR also records the obsolete neuter damn.^[2] MDA2 gives a regional plural dauni.^[4]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin damnum (“loss, damage”), adapted to Romanian sounds: the group /mn/ was turned into /un/ as in scaun, which continues scamnum.^[2][5][6] Tiktin explains the feminine ending and gender by pagubă (“damage, loss”), and DLR derives it from the Latin plural taken as a feminine singular.^[5][3] DELR calls it a Latin neologism, revived by writers to render French dommage.^[2]

The older view that it is inherited goes back to Pușcariu (no. 488) and the REW, which list it beside Italian danno, Spanish daño and Portuguese dano.^[7][8][9] Philippide connected it with Albanian dëmoń (“to harm”), or derived it from the verb dăuna, taken from damnō (“to condemn”).^[10][2] Ciorănescu finds the learned explanation unsatisfactory, since the word first appears in Romantic writers such as Negruzzi and Alecsandri, who in his view lacked the philological training to model it on the inherited words.^[10] He notes, however, that there is no evidence of earlier use for the inherited view either, and says the word still needs a study.^[10] DELR notes that a Latin word may survive in the old derivative dăunos “greedy”, but its own records of the noun are all learned.^[2]

The Latin word comes from Proto-Italic *dapnom and *dh₂pnóm (“expense, investment”).^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is the plural damne “damages” in Petru Maior (1816), and the form daună in Asachi (1836).^[2] DLR and MDA2 date it to 1829, in the newspaper Albina românească: „nu a făcut nici o daună la Constantinopole” “it did no damage at Constantinople”, of an earthquake.^[3][4] Tiktin's first record is in Costache Negruzzi's translation of Maria Tudor (1837).^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the material loss or harm caused to someone, the word took a legal sense in the plural: daune-interese (or daune și interese), after dommages-intérêts, the sum a debtor owes a creditor for an unfulfilled obligation, and by extension compensation for a wrong.^[2][9][4] The phrase în dauna cuiva “to someone's detriment” became the usual prepositional use.^[12][13]

The word also reached folk speech: tales recorded in the 1880s use ceva daună for “some harm, some misfortune”, and the new series of the Romanian linguistic atlas records it in dialect.^[3] Ciorănescu derives from it the verb dăuna, the adjective dăunător and desdăuna “to compensate”, the last formed on the model of dédommager.^[10]

Timeline

• 1816 – the plural damne in Petru Maior, the first record.^[2]
• 1829 – daună in Albina românească.^[3][4]
• 1836 – the form daună in Asachi.^[2]
• 1837 – in Costache Negruzzi's Maria Tudor.^[5]
• 1852 – dăunător “harmful”.^[2]
• 1858 – dăunos “harmful”, also damnos.^[2]
• 1871 – the verb dăuna “to harm” in Laurian and Massim.^[2]
• 2007 – daunalitate “claims ratio” of an insurance company.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. damage, loss, harm (material or moral): Grindina a produs daune mari în livezi. “The hail did great damage in the orchards.”^[12][4]
2. în dauna (+ genitive): to the detriment of, at the expense of someone or something.^[12][13]
3. (chiefly plural; law) compensation, damages: a cere daune “to claim damages”;^[12][14][4] daune-interese “damages and interest”.^[12][14][4]

Word family

• dăuna
• dăunător
• dăunos
• dezdăuna

Related words

• Latin damnum
• pagubă

Usage notes

The a and u are pronounced as separate syllables: da-u-nă.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. daună
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. daună
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 603
5. ^ 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. daună
6. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 192
7. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 43
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2468
9. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 390
10. ^ a b c d 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. daună
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. damnum
12. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 272
13. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 16
14. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. daună