fereastră

Forms

fereastră f (plural ferestre)^[1] Moldavia and the Banat say fereastă, plural ferești;^[2][3] Eminescu has the plural: „Lună tu, ... în câte mii de case / Lin pătruns-ai prin ferești” “Moon, into how many thousand houses have you softly slipped through the windows”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fenestra (“window”).^[4][5][2][1] The /n/ between vowels became /r/ by rhotacism.^[1] The word survives in Aromanian as fireastrã.^[4][6] Its Romance cognates include Italian finestra, Occitan fenestra, French fenêtre, Catalan finestra and Portuguese fresta “skylight”.^[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a text of about 1560 in Bratu's edition.^[2] MDA2 and the DA cite the Bucharest Bible of 1688, where Noah opens the window of the ark: „deșchise Noe fereastra” “Noah opened the window”.^[5][3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word names the opening in a wall and also the frame with its sashes and panes set in it.^[8][5] Dosoftei's fereastră de soare meant a foișor, an open gallery, and the DA compares Latin solarium.^[3][5] By analogy it named a cleft in a rock or a passage between two crags.^[3][5] Modern senses are a mining term, the place where a shaft meets an underground landing, and, in student slang, a free hour between two classes.^[8] Romanian formed the diminutive ferestruică and the noun ferestrar “plane”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1560 – the first record, in a text edited by Bratu.^[2]
• 1678 – fereastră glossing Slavonic okno in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[9]
• 1688 – fereastra in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 8:6).^[5][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A window: an opening in the wall of a building or vehicle that lets in air and light; the frame with its panes fitted in it.^[8][1]
2. (mining) The place where a mine shaft meets an underground landing.^[8]
3. (figurative, colloquial) A free period between two classes in a teacher's or student's day.^[8]

Word family

• ferestruică
• ferestrar

Related words

• Aromanian fireastrã
• Latin fenestra

Usage notes

A arunca banii pe fereastră means “to squander money”;^[8] fereastră oarbă is a blind window.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. fereastră
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. fereastră
4. ^ 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. fereastră
5. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 894
6. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3242
8. ^ 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. 388
9. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro