jura

Forms

a jura (present jur, third-person singular jură, past participle jurat), first conjugation.^[1] Old and Moldavian texts spell it giura: „Că de ară și giura, nime nu-l va creade” “for even if he should swear, no one will believe him”.^[2][3] Regional present forms have /o/: jor, joară: „Noaptea fură, ziua joară” “by night he steals, by day he swears”.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin iūrō (“to swear, take an oath”).^[3][5][6][1] The Latin verb is formed on iūs (“law; ritual formula”).^[7] Wiktionary traces it further to Proto-Indo-European *h₂yew-.^[1]

The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian giur, Megleno-Romanian jur and Istro-Romanian jur.^[3][8] Its Romance cognates are Italian giurare, French jurer, Spanish jurar, Catalan jurar and Portuguese jurar.^[3][9]

înjura “to curse” is its doublet: Ciorănescu forms it from this verb with the prefix în-, and doubts Pușcariu's and the DA's derivation from iniūriō, since the verb is learned in the other Romance languages.^[3] He also derives jurământ “oath” inside Romanian with the suffix -mânt, rather than from iūrāmentum as Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu and the REW have it.^[3] Hungarian zsurál (“to curse”) is a loan from Romanian.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is the pluperfect jurase in Coresi's Psalter of 1570.^[10] Tiktin cites the verb from the Codicele Voronețean, a 16th-century manuscript (Acts 23:12), and MDA2 from Coresi's homiliary of 1581, where those who swear falsely are condemned: „mărturisesc strâmb sau jură strâmb”.^[4][5][2] The sense was “to swear an oath”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From swearing an oath the verb developed the senses “to promise solemnly” (a jura credință “to swear allegiance”) and, transitively, “to make someone swear”: Neculce writes that the hetman was sworn to be just to the country.^[5][4] In popular speech it means “to call down a curse on oneself” to back up a statement, and “to implore, adjure” someone.^[6][2] An older use, “to curse, insult”, is the sense of înjura.^[2][5]

The proverb hoțul fură și jură “the thief steals and swears” is recorded by CADE.^[11] The past participle jurat is also a noun, “juror”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1570 – jurase in Coresi's Psalter.^[10]
• 16th century – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[4]
• 1581 – jură strâmb “swears falsely” in Coresi's homiliary.^[5][2]
• 1660 – jura glossing Slavonic кленусѧ “to swear” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – 115 occurrences of jurat in the Bucharest Bible.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To swear, to declare or affirm under oath; to confirm a testimony by oath in court;^[6][5][1] (reflexive) to promise on oath: A jurat că spune adevărul. “He swore he was telling the truth.”^[6][5][1]
2. (reflexive, popular) To call a curse down on oneself to back up what one says.^[6][5]
3. (popular) To implore, to beg someone earnestly, to adjure.^[6][14]

Word family

• jurat
• jurător
• jurământ
• jurui

Related words

• înjura

Usage notes

A jura strâmb (or pe strâmbătate) means “to perjure oneself”.^[4][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. jura
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. jura
4. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. jura
5. ^ 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, 1294
6. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 569
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 538
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4630
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 101:9
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. jura
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. jura
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 21:31
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. jura