iad

Forms

iad n (plural iaduri)^[1] Old texts also have the form ad, without the initial /j/: „Puterea adului fu zdrobită” “the power of hell was crushed” (Varlaam).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic адъ (adŭ, “hell, underworld”), a word of the church.^[1][4][5] The Slavonic word renders Ancient Greek ᾍδης (Hāídēs, “Hades, the underworld”) in the translations of the Bible.^[1][6][7] Old Church Slavonic also wrote it with an initial /j/, ꙗдь (jadĭ), a form found once in one text;^[6][4][5][8] MDA2 gives both spellings, and Ciorănescu and DEX give the Slavonic form with /j/.^[6][4][5][8] Ciorănescu names Bulgarian ад (ad), Serbo-Croatian ад (ad) and Russian ад (ad) as cognates.^[5]

Gabinschi sets the word beside its learned doublet hades, taken straight from the Greek.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where iad renders the underworld of the Psalms (Psalm 9:18).^[10] MDA2 and Tiktin date it from the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578).^[4][11]

Semantic evolution

In the Christian sense the word names the place where the souls of sinners are punished after death; folk belief puts it deep under the earth, in the darkest place.^[2][8] Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649 and the later 17th-century lexicons use it to translate Slavonic words for hell and Tartarus.^[12]

The figurative sense, an unbearable situation or a place of torment, is the modern one.^[8][3] Folk speech calls a wicked old woman talpa iadului “the sole of hell”, from the name of the devil's mother in folk tales, as in Creangă.^[11][3] In Transylvania Romanian formed the verb iedui “to torture”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – iad in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10]
• c. 1573–1578 – iad in the Psaltirea Scheiană, the first record in MDA2.^[4]
• 1649 – iadul glossing Slavonic адъ (adŭ) in Mardarie's lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – iad more than sixty times in the Bucharest Bible.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. (religion) hell: the place where, in many religions, the souls of sinners suffer eternal punishment; infern, gheenă.^[8][4][1]
2. (figurative) A situation or place of torment, hard to bear; plural iaduri: Viața lui devenise un iad.^[8][4]

Word family

• iedui

Related words

• hades
• Old Church Slavonic адъ (adŭ)

Usage notes

A second, obsolete iad meant “venom, poison”: „Iadul aspideei supt usnele lor” “the venom of asps is under their lips” in the Psaltirea Scheiană (Psalm 139:3), where Coresi has veninul.^[14][15] It is a literary borrowing of the Slavonic word for poison, from Proto-Slavic *ědъ (“poison”).^[14][4][16] Moldovan folk speech still uses it for a snake's venom.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. iad
3. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 610
4. ^ 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, 1097
5. ^ a b c d e 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. iad
6. ^ a b c Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org, p. s.v. адъ
7. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 1, 4
8. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 484
9. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 112
10. ^ 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 9:18
11. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. iad 1
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. iadul
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 37:35
14. ^ a b 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. iad 2
15. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. iad 2
16. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 150
17. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 136