domn

Forms

domn m (plural domni, feminine equivalent doamnă)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin domnus (“master, lord”), the shortened form of dominus.^[2][3][1][4] The short form already occurs in Latin inscriptions.^[5] The Latin word is an old derivative of domus (“house”), so its first sense was “master of the house”; in Christian Latin it took the sense “the Lord” after Ancient Greek κύριος (kúrios).^[2][6] The vocative ⟨Doamne⟩ continues the Latin vocative.^[3]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian domnu, Megleno-Romanian dom and Istro-Romanian domnu.^[3][7][8] In Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian it can also mean “heaven”.^[9] Its Romance cognates include Italian donno, Occitan dom, Old French dam, Spanish dueño and Spanish don, and Portuguese dom.^[3][1] The feminine doamnă goes back in the same way to domna, the short form of domina.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of about 1500.^[2] The oldest sense is “master” as opposed to a servant or slave: the psalter speaks of the eyes of the servants turned to the hands of their masters, ca ochii șerbilor în mâinile domnilor săi, and Coresi writes that the servant is not greater than his master.^[10] At the same time the word translated Greek κύριος and Slavonic gospodĭ for God, as in the psalters and in the Bible of 1688, where Domnul occurs nearly five thousand times.^[11][12][13] MDA2 gives the Codicele Voronețean as its first record.^[14]

Semantic evolution

From “master” the word came to mean the ruler of a land, and it became the title of the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia;^[15] Ciorănescu notes that its derivatives such as domnie should therefore be translated with words of royalty.^[3][2] As a name of God it kept the vocative Doamne, which also became an exclamation of surprise or grief (Doamne, ce frig e!) and a part of set phrases such as vezi, Doamne “so to speak”.^[3][16]

Since the 17th century domn has also been a title of politeness for any man, with the vocative domnule and the familiar dom'le.^[15][3][16] The polite pronouns grew out of phrases with domnie: domnia-ta became dumneata, a model like Albanian zoterote (zoteri-jote).^[9][3] In popular speech a domn is also a townsman or a husband, and in Maramureș a landlord or a man in town clothes.^[16][17]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – domn in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, and its feminine doamnă in the same text.^[2]
• c. 1563–1583 – the Codicele Voronețean.^[14][11]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon renders Slavonic words for “lord” and “voivode” with domn.^[18]
• 1688 – Domnul for God throughout the Bucharest Bible.^[13][11]
• 17th century – first use as a title of politeness.^[15]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it with Latin dominus, Hungarian úr and German Herr.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. Mister, sir: a polite term for a man, alone or before a name or title; in the familiar vocative it opens an exclamation or question: Dom'le, ce zi frumoasă!^[16][1]
2. (popular) A husband; a townsman.^[16]
3. A master: a person with authority over others or over something.^[16][14]
4. (historical) The title of the rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia; a voievod or prince.^[16][3]
5. Domnul: God or Jesus Christ, whose vocative Doamne! is also an exclamation of surprise or grief.^[16][14]

Word family

• doamnă
• domnel
• domnesc
• domni
• domnie
• domnime
• domnișoară
• domnișor
• domniță
• domnitor
• dumneata
• dumneavoastră

Related words

• Domn
• duminică
• Aromanian domnu
• Latin dominus

Usage notes

The vocative has two forms: Doamne for God and the old rulers, domnule (familiar dom'le) for any man.^[3][16] In the expression a lăsa pe cineva în plata Domnului “to leave someone alone”, the word means God.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. domn
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. domn
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2741
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 411
8. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 209
9. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 47
10. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. domn
11. ^ 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. domn
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 1:6
13. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 2:4
14. ^ 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, 744
15. ^ a b c Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 217
16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 327
17. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica
18. ^ 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. domn
19. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 194