geamăn

Forms

geamăn m or n (feminine singular geamănă, masculine plural gemeni, feminine/neuter plural gemene)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin geminus (“twin-born, twin”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Aromanian has dzeamin.^[7][8][2] Of the Romance languages, Portuguese gémeo is likewise inherited, while Italian gemino is a learned word; French jumeau and Spanish gemelo come from the diminutive gemellus.^{[2][9][1][10]}

De Vaan traces the Latin word to Proto-Indo-European *iemH-no- (“paired, connected”), with an initial ⟨g⟩ taken over from gignō (“to beget”) or genus (“offspring”).^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word first appears in names: Gemen in a Transylvanian document of 1214, and a personal name of 1446 that Tiktin records.^[12][6] The first text is Moxa's chronicle (1620), in the story of Numitor's daughter: „puse de o păziia până când născură doi geameni” “he set a guard over her until she gave birth to twins”.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides “twin” the word was used early of things that grow in pairs: the Bucharest Bible of 1688 has „L-au spânzurat pre un lemn geamăn” “they hanged him on a forked tree”, and fruits that grow joined together are gemene.^[5] The same Bible calls the apostle Thomas „Thoma cel ce să chiamă giamăn”, rendering Greek dídymos.^[6] The plural Gemenii names the constellation Gemini, recorded in 1814.^[5] Cantemir called the ostrich jigania geamănă, “the twin beast”, because it shares the traits of birds and of four-footed animals.^[6] In Banat the feminine geamănă is the fork of a cart.^[3][5] In anatomy mușchii gemeni are the paired calf muscles.^[4] Recent compounds include gemeni-eprubetă “test-tube twins” (1981), after French jumeaux-éprouvette.^[13]

Timeline

• 1214 – the personal name Gemen in a Transylvanian document.^[12]
• 1446 – a personal name recorded by Tiktin.^[6]
• 1620 – geameni “twins” in Moxa's chronicle, the first text record.^[3][5]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses the Slavonic word for “twin” and the byname Didymus.^[14]
• 1688 – Thomas's byname (John 11:16) and a forked tree in the Bucharest Bible.^[6][5][15]
• 1814 – zodia Geamenilor “the sign of Gemini”.^[5]
• 1981 – gemeni-eprubetă “test-tube twins”.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. twin: born at the same time as another by the same mother or female animal: frați gemeni “twin brothers”.^[4][1]
2. (of plants) Having two stems from the same root;^[1] (of fruit) grown joined in pairs.^[4]
3. (anatomy) mușchii gemeni: the paired muscles of the calf.^[4][3]

Noun

1. A twin.^[4][1]
2. Gemenii (plural): the zodiac constellation Gemini, with the stars Castor and Pollux; one of the signs of the zodiac.^[4]
3. (regional, Banat, feminine) The forked pole of a cart.^[3]

Word family

• gemănar
• gemănare
• îngemăna
• îngemănat

Related words

• Aromanian dzeamin
• Latin geminus

Usage notes

The rare variant is gemen.^[4] The old phrase de-a gemenea meant “as twins”.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. geamăn
3. ^ 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, 980
4. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 431
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. geamăn
6. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. geámăn
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 432
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3723
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. geamăn
13. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. geamăn
14. ^ 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. geamăn
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Jn 11:16