femeie

Forms

femeie f (plural femei)^[1] Old and regional variants are fămeie, fămeaie, fomeie, fumeie and Moldavian fimeie.^[2][3] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has „Bărbat și fămeie au făcut pre dânșii” “male and female he made them”.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin familia (“household, family”).^[3][2][5][1] Romanian familie is a later learned borrowing of the same Latin word.^[3] Wiktionary notes that the word has nothing to do with Latin femella or fēmina, the source of French femme.^[1]

Aromanian fumealji and Megleno-Romanian fămel'ă keep the old senses “family, children”.^[3][6][7] The word is also kept in Albanian fëmijë (“child”), in north Italian dialects such as Old Lombard and Venetian, and in Galician and Portuguese.^[3][6][1] Elsewhere the Latin word survives only in learned forms, which Pușcariu explains by its survival in legal language alone.^[6] Candrea and Densusianu explain the /o/ and /u/ of the variants fomeie and fumeie by the neighbouring labial consonants.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Tetraevanghel of 1561, and MDA2 cites a text in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni, which collects writings of 1550–1600.^[4][2] In the 16th and 17th centuries the word meant “family, household”: Coresi's Omiliar urges a man to go to church „cu muierea ta și cu toată fămeaia ta” “with your wife and all your household”.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The change from “family” to “woman” happened only in Daco-Romanian.^[3] Candrea and Densusianu date the new sense mainly from the second half of the 17th century and explain it as a narrowing: “the wife and children” came to mean the wife alone, while Aromanian narrowed it to the children.^[8] The 1651 psalter still uses fămeia lui Iacov for “the house of Jacob”, while the Bible of 1688 already uses the word for “woman”.^[4]

Older senses recorded by MDA2 include “descendants, kin” and “people, tribe”.^[2] In popular speech femeie also means “wife”, and femeie de stradă is a prostitute.^[2][5] Derivatives include femeiesc “feminine”, femeiușcă “little woman; female animal” and afemeiat “womanizing”, modelled on French efféminé.^[3]

Timeline

• 1550–1600 – a text in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni, MDA2's first record.^[2]
• 1561 – Coresi's Tetraevanghel.^[4]
• 1648 – fămeiea sa “his household” in the New Testament of Bălgrad.^[4]
• 1651 – fămeia lui Iacov “the house of Jacob” in the psalter of Bălgrad.^[4][6]
• second half of the 17th century – the sense “woman” spreads.^[8]
• 1688 – fămeie “woman” in the Bucharest Bible.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A woman: an adult female person.^[5][1]
2. A married woman;^[5][1] (popular, with a possessive) a wife.^[5][1]
3. (obsolete) A family, a household.^[2][1]

Word family

• femeiesc
• femeiește
• femeiet
• femeiușcă
• afemeiat

Related words

• familie
• Aromanian fumealji
• Latin familia

Usage notes

It is pronounced in four syllables, fe-me-ie; the plural is femei.^[5][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 892
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. femeie
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. femeie
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 387
6. ^ a b c d e Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 51
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
8. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București