greș

Forms

greș n (plural greșuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Romanian greși (“to err, to sin”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The verb is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic грѣшити (grěšiti, “to sin”).^[3][6][1]

Ciorănescu lists other views: Bogrea took the noun from Serbo-Croatian greš, and Miklosich and Cihac from Slavonic грѣхъ (grěxŭ, “sin”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a document of 1633 published by Iorga, in the phrase fără greș “without fail”: „Că-i veaste rea și vin Leașii fără greș” “for the news is bad, and the Poles are coming without fail”.^[4][3][7]

Semantic evolution

The noun meant a mistake or a fault, and in religious texts a sin.^[4][6] Fără greș “without fail, surely” is frequent in 17th-century writers such as Varlaam, Dosoftei and Costin.^[4] In farming the word named a strip left unploughed where the plough slipped out of the furrow.^[4][5]

Today the noun is old or regional and lives mainly in phrases: fără greș “flawlessly” and a da greș “to miss the target; to fail”.^[2] Older phrases are a-i da cuiva greș “to find fault with someone”, and regionally a nu avea greș “to do no harm, to be right”.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1633 – fără greș in a document, the first record.^[3][7]
• 1643 – fără de greș in Varlaam's Cazanie.^[4]
• 1678 – greș in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (old and regional) A mistake, an error.^[2][3]
2. In fără greș: perfectly, without error; without fail.^[2][4]
3. In a da greș: to miss the target; to fail in an undertaking: Planul lor a dat greș.^[2][1]
4. (regional) A strip of land left unploughed between furrows.^[4][5]

Related words

• greși
• greșeală
• negreșit

Usage notes

The plural greșuri is rare.^[2] A separate, rare greș “small bunch of grapes left on the vine after the harvest” occurs in the Bible of 1688 (Judges 8:2); MDA2 and the DA derive it from a Latin *agrestius, Tiktin from Latin agrestis.^[3][4][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 450
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1022
4. ^ 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. greș
5. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 575
6. ^ 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. greși
7. ^ 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. greș
8. ^ 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. greș