decembrie

Forms

decembrie m (uncountable)^[1] The old form was dechemvrie, also dechevrie, dechemvre and dechembre: Coresi's book was begun „în luna lu dechemvrie, 14 zile” “on the 14th of the month of December” of 1580.^[2][3] Regional forms include dețember and dețembăr in Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina, and dechemvire in Moldavia.^[3]

Etymology

The modern form is borrowed from Latin december, a learned loan of the 19th century, with ⟨-ie⟩ taken from the older forms of the word.^[3][4][1][5] The Latin name comes from decem (“ten”), as December was the tenth month of the old Roman year, which began in March.^[3][6] DEX and MDN name French décembre as a second model.^[7][8]

The older form dechemvrie came through Slavonic декемврий (dekemvrij), from Byzantine Greek δεκέμβριος (dekémbrios), itself from Latin.^[3][2][1] The variant dechembrie reflects декѧбрь (dekębrĭ), the forms with ⟨ț⟩ come from German Dezember, and the form decambri from Russian декабрь (dekabrʹ).^[3][9] Ciorănescu derives the old forms from Greek in part through Slavonic, and Tiktin names both Greek and Latin.^[4][10] The word is Aromanian dechembriu south of the Danube.^[11][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first certain record is Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură of 1581, whose printing was begun in December 1580: „în luna lu dechemvrie”.^[3][2][5] Tiktin dates the word to a document of 1501, which DELR considers uncertain.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

The month name was always the same: the old texts date events with it from Coresi to the chronicles of Ureche, Miron Costin and Neculce, mostly as dechemvrie.^[2] The Latin-based decembrie replaced it in the 19th century.^[4] Decemvrie was still used in the 20th.^[4][2][12] The folk names of the month are undrea or îndrea, ningău and neios.^[2][5][7] Derivatives name the Decembrists of 1825, after Russian, and, since the 1990s, the time before and after the Revolution of December 1989.^[3]

Timeline

• 1501 – an uncertain record in a document.^[3][10]
• 1581 – dechemvrie in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[3][2]
• 1639 – dechemvrie in a church book of prayers.^[2]
• 1733 – Dechemvrie as a heading in a calendar.^[2]
• 1925 – decembrist “Decembrist”, after Russian.^[3]
• 1991 – postdecembrist “after the Revolution of December 1989”.^[3]
• 1997 – antedecembrist “before the Revolution of December 1989”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. December: the twelfth and last month of the year.^[7][5][1]

Word family

• decembrist
• postdecembrist
• antedecembrist

Related words

• Aromanian dechembriu
• Latin december
• zece

Usage notes

The word is often used with luna “the month”: luna decembrie or luna lui decembrie.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. decembrie
3. ^ 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. decembrie
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. decembrie
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 616
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 277
8. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. decembrie
9. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
10. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. decembrie
11. ^ 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. 2, 32
12. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 29