greutate

Forms

greutate f (plural greutăți)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *grevitātem, the popular form of Latin gravitās (“heaviness, weight”), according to MDA2, Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu and Wiktionary.^[2][3][4][1] Candrea–Densusianu add that the form was influenced by greu, since the Latin word alone would have given ⟨grefate⟩.^[3] The REW lists it beside Italian gravità and Old French griete.^[5] The Latin noun is formed on gravis (“heavy”).^[6]

Ciorănescu finds the derivation from Latin less likely and takes the word as a Romanian derivative of the adjective with the suffix ⟨-(t)ate⟩, as in puținătate, singurătate and străinătate;^[4][7][8][9] Tiktin, Scriban and Wikționar also derive it from the adjective.^[4][7][8][9] The Aromanian form is griutati.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1617.^[7] MDA2 dates it to Varlaam's Cazania of 1643.^[2] In the chronicles it means “hardship”: Ureche writes that the reign of Aron Vodă „multă greutate au adus țării” “brought much hardship to the country”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word joined the physical sense, heaviness and weight, to the moral one, burden, trouble and difficulty, from the first texts on.^[7][11] Mardarie's lexicon of 1649 uses it for Slavonic words meaning “heaviness” and “grief”.^[12] A figurative sense “influence, standing” is in Neculce: boyars “who had weight” with the prince; today om cu greutate is “a man of weight”.^[11][8] The REW notes the sense “nausea, disgust”, and the DA a heaviness of the stomach after food.^[5][11]

In the 19th century it became the term of physics, with greutate specifică “specific weight”, greutate atomică and centru de greutate.^[13][7] Concrete senses followed: a weight for scales, a dumbbell, and the shot of athletics.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1617 – first record, in a document.^[7]
• 1643 – in Varlaam's Cazania.^[2]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic words for “heaviness” and “grief” with it.^[12]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible, where greutatea zilei is “the burden of the day”.^[15]
• 1801 – Klein glosses it Latin gravitas.^[16]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda gives “weight, burden”, “difficulty” and “grievance”.^[17]
• 1870 – Costinescu adds the sense of a heaviness of the stomach or head.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. Weight: the pressure a body exerts on the surface that supports it; heaviness; the force with which the Earth attracts a body.^[13] Greutate specifică is “specific weight”.^[13][1]
2. A heavy object or load;^[13] (figurative) a feeling of heaviness or oppression: mi s-a luat o greutate de pe inimă “a weight has been lifted from my heart”.^[13]
3. A piece of metal of standard mass used in weighing; in sport, the shot or a dumbbell.^[13][14]
4. Difficulty, hardship, trouble: a întâmpinat multe greutăți “he met many difficulties”.^[13][19][1]
5. (figurative) Importance, influence: om cu greutate “a man of weight”.^[8][19]

Related words

• greu
• greoi
• îngreuna
• gravitate
• Aromanian griutati

Usage notes

Old texts and the 1823 Clemens dictionary also write greotate; it survives in dialect texts with the sense “a hard life”.^[20][7] Wiktionary notes that it is a doublet of the borrowing gravitate.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1023
3. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. greutate
4. ^ 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. greu
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3856
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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. greutate
8. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 576
9. ^ a b Wikționar (Romanian Wiktionary), ro.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. greutate
10. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 516
11. ^ a b c 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. greutate
12. ^ a b 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. greutate
13. ^ 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. 450
14. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. greutate
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthei 20:12
16. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 368
17. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 244
18. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 501
19. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 284
20. ^ Gaster, M. (1891), Chrestomatie română: texte tipărite și manuscrise (sec. XVI–XIX), dialectale și populare, cu o introducere, gramatică și un glosar româno-francez, vol. II, Leipzig: Brockhaus / București: Socec, p. s.v. greutate