haină

Forms

haină f (plural haine)^[1] A regional plural is hăini.^[2]

Etymology

It is a South Slavic loan, borrowed from Serbo-Croatian haljina (“garment, bedding”) according to Ciorănescu (following Diez and Cihac) and DA;^[3][4] MDA2 gives the Serbian form as hajina.^[2] DEX 2009 gives the source as Bulgarian халина (halina), and DLRM names both the Bulgarian and the Serbian word.^[5][6] Wiktionary gives the same two sources.^[1] Tiktin names only a Slavic source.^[7] Cihac compared the related Slavic halja.^[8]

DA calls the Serbian word of Turkish origin.^[4] Scriban traced it further to a Turkish word for “carpet” of Persian origin, a view of his own.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581–1582, in Genesis 39:12.^[7] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it in „Plânge dară și te îmbracă în haine de jale” “weep then and put on mourning clothes” (2 Samuel 14:2).^[7]

Semantic evolution

DA notes that haină replaced the older word veșmânt in most regions.^[4] In the widest sense any clothing is haine, even bedding (haine de pat), but usually the word means what covers the body, not the hat, shoes or gloves, and in places the linen (haine albe) is kept apart from it.^[4][2] In Romania the singular came to mean above all a man's jacket with sleeves, worn under the overcoat.^[4][5]

Figurative senses are “appearance” and “outer covering”.^[2] Biology uses haină de nuntă for the breeding colours of some fish, amphibians and birds.^[5] The Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the 17th century already use haină to render Slavonic words for robes and clothing.^[10]

Timeline

• 1581–1582 – first record, in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[7]
• 1646 – haină in the Moldavian law code, MDA2's first record.^[2][11]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – haine de jale “mourning clothes” in the Bucharest Bible.^[7]
• 1801 – in Klein's dictionary, glossed Latin vestis.^[13]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (in the plural) clothes, clothing: articles of dress in general, especially men's: un rând de haine “a suit”.^[5][2]
2. (in the singular) A man's jacket for the upper body; a long wide garment covering the whole body; an overcoat.^[5][2]
3. (figurative) Appearance, outer covering.^[2]
4. (biology) haină de nuntă: the nuptial plumage or breeding colours of the males of some fish, amphibians and birds.^[5]

Word family

• hăinar
• hăinărie
• hăinuță

Related words

• veșmânt
• strai
• Serbo-Croatian haljina

Usage notes

An idiom is a-și da și haina de pe el “to give the coat off one's back”, to sacrifice anything.^[5] Tiktin records proverbs such as Haina nu face pe om mai de treabă “clothes do not make a man any better” and Haina străină nu ține de cald “borrowed clothes don't keep you warm”.^[7] Stoica Ludescu (18th century) has haină in the sense “password”, and Ciorănescu could not say whether it is the same word.^[3] Haibăr “garment” is a blend of haină and laibăr.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1037
3. ^ 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. haină
4. ^ 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. haină
5. ^ 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. 457
6. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. haină
7. ^ 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. haină
8. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 133
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 585
10. ^ 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. haină
11. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. undeva
12. ^ 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. haine
13. ^ 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. 370
14. ^ 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. 251