mări

Forms

mări (third-person singular present mărește, past participle mărit), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Romanian mare (“big, great”), a verb formed on the adjective.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of the adjective, beside măreț, mărime and preamări.^[6]

The adjective goes back to Latin mās (“male”), whose oblique stem is ⟨mar-⟩; the change of sense from “male, grown up” to “big” is explained in several ways, and the REW rejected the etymology.^[6] Aromanian formed a verb of its own on its adjective mari (“big”): Aromanian mãrescu “to grow, enlarge; to be proud”.^[7][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[3] There the forms măriți (Psalm 33:3), măriră (Psalm 103:25) and mărit (Psalm 137:3) occur.^[9] Coresi's psalter gives the first of these verses as „Măriți Domnul cu mine și înălțăm numele lui depreună” “Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together”, where the Church Slavonic original has vŭzveličite “magnify”.^[4] Tiktin also cites the verb from the Psaltirea Scheiană (Psalm 17:51).^[4] The earliest sense is thus the biblical one, “to magnify, glorify”, beside “to make or become great”.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb had a physical and a moral side: making something larger, and praising or exalting someone.^[4][5] Neculce writes of the boyars who set about repairing a fortress „ș-a o mări ș-a o lărgi” “and to enlarge and widen it”.^[5] The reflexive came to be said of children growing up, as in the proverb S-a mărit măgarul, s-a micșorat samarul “the donkey has grown, the pack-saddle has shrunk”, said of a child who has outgrown his clothes.^[4][5]

The verb then widened from size to number, value and intensity: a salary or a price is raised, a noise or a charm grows stronger.^[10][2] A reflexive “to boast, be puffed up” is recorded in the old moral literature, and DEX labels it old and popular.^[4][2] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons already gloss măresc with Slavonic verbs for both “to magnify” and “to be puffed up”.^[11] In Maramureș the reflexive still means “to show off, be proud”.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – măriți, măriră and mărit in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3][9]
• 16th century – the verb in the Psaltirea Scheiană (Psalm 17:51).^[4]
• 1570 – măresc and măriți in Coresi's psalter.^[13]
• 1649 – măresc in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – măresc, mărind and other forms in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]
• 1955–1957 – DLRLC records the verb for a salary that is raised and a group that grows in number.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To enlarge or grow larger in size, number or quantity; to increase: Au mărit curtea școlii.^[2][3]
2. (reflexive) To grow up, get older: Copiii s-au mărit și au plecat de acasă.^[2][10]
3. (transitive) To raise a value or a price: Le-au mărit salariile.^[2][3]
4. (transitive and reflexive) To intensify, develop.^[2][3]
5. (transitive and reflexive) To prolong in time.^[2]
6. (transitive) To honour, glorify someone or something; compare preamări.^[2][3]
7. (reflexive, dated and popular) To boast, be conceited.^[2][3]

Word family

• mărire
• preamări

Related words

• mare
• măreț
• mărime
• Aromanian mãrescu

Usage notes

DEX has a second headword mări, an interjection that is the same word as măre “hey!”.^[2][3] Ciorănescu gives it as the Moldavian variant of măre, and Șăineanu labels it Moldavian.^[15][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 629
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1457
4. ^ 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. mărí
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mări
6. ^ a b 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. mare
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 666
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 630
9. ^ 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 33:3
10. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 40
11. ^ 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. măresc
12. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. mărí
13. ^ 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 17:54
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Daniel 4:34
15. ^ 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. măre
16. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 385