frumos

Forms

frumos m or n (feminine singular frumoasă, masculine plural frumoși, feminine/neuter plural frumoase)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fōrmōsus (“shapely, beautiful”), from forma (“form, shape”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Its Romance cognates include Italian formoso, Occitan formos, Spanish hermoso and Portuguese formoso.^[2][6][1] Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian say mușat instead, which Ciorănescu traces to a shortened derivative of the same Latin word.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a Slavonic–Romanian document of 1411.^[7] MDA2 cites the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), and the feminine frumoasă occurs in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

Besides “beautiful, pleasing to look at”, the adjective came to mean “morally admirable”, of weather “fine, clear”, and of things “considerable, remarkable”.^[4][3] Used as an adverb it means “nicely, properly”, and as a neuter noun “the beautiful” as a category of aesthetics.^[2][4] In folk belief Frumoasele “the beautiful ones” is a euphemism for the iele, the fairies.^[2][9]

Derivatives include frumușel “pretty”, frumusețe “beauty” and înfrumuseța “to embellish”.^[2] Ciorănescu derives Old Polish frymuszny “capricious, fussy; strange” from Romanian.^[2]

Timeline

• 1411 – the first record, in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[7]
• early 16th century – frumoasă in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8]
• c. 1563–1583 – frumosu in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][7]
• 1688 – „frumos la față foarte” “very handsome of face”, of Joseph, in the Bucharest Bible.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. beautiful, handsome: pleasing for the harmony of its lines, movements or colours;^[4][1] arte frumoase “fine arts”.^[4][1]
2. Morally admirable, praiseworthy.^[4]
3. Of weather: fine, clear, calm.^[4]
4. Of things or deeds: considerable, remarkable: o sumă frumoasă “a tidy sum”.^[4]

Adverb

1. nicely, pleasantly; properly, as one should: nu e frumos să vorbești așa “it isn't nice to talk like that”.^[4][7]

Noun

1. (neuter) The beautiful as a category of aesthetics.^[4][2]
2. (feminine plural, articled) Frumoasele: the iele, fairies of folk belief.^[4][2]

Word family

• frumușel
• frumusețe
• înfrumuseța
• înfrumusețitor

Related words

• formă
• Aromanian mușat
• Latin fōrmōsus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. frumos
3. ^ 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, 946
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 416
5. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3450
7. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. frumos
8. ^ a b 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 44:3
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București