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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word mal

Confidence
Disputed
First attested
1433 place name in Banat More words from the 15th century
From
Proto-Albanian *mala

Forms

mal n (plural maluri)[1]

Etymology

Its origin is unclear.[2] DEX and MDA2 only compare the Albanian word for “mountain”, and Tiktin connects it with that word as well, provided that the Muntenian sense “hill” is genuine.[3][4][5] Wiktionary takes it from Proto-Albanian *mala (“mountain”), the source of Albanian mal (“mountain”).[1] Demiraj lists the Romanian word and Latvian mala (“shore, edge”) beside the Albanian one, reconstructs a Proto-Albanian stem *mall-, and notes that it may not be Indo-European at all.[6]

Ciorănescu points out that the word matches Albanian but cannot be explained as a loan from it.[2] Many scholars, from Miklosich and Hasdeu to Philippide, Densusianu, Pascu and Rosetti, have called it a native word of the old Balkan languages and linked it with the Dacian place name Malva of the province Dacia Malvensis, with Illyrian Dimallum and with Latvian.[2] He finds a Slavonic source, proposed by Cihac, improbable.[2][7] Since an inherited word would have turned the /l/ between vowels into /r/, he holds that it cannot be inherited, and suggests an expressive root that may also lie behind the Moldavian maldac and maldăr “heap”.[2]

South of the Danube it is Aromanian mal “shore, bank”, beside meal.[8][9][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears first in place names: a village in Banat called Mal is on record from 1433, and Tiktin adds another place name of 1445.[10][11][5] MDA2's first record in a Romanian text is the Teachings of Neagoe Basarab, where four serpents' heads come out of a steep bank: „Văzu 4 capete de aspidă, unde să iviră din malul acela”.[4][12] The sense there is a rise of ground with steep sides, which the DLR treats as the oldest one.[12]

Semantic evolution

The older sense, a mound or rise lower than a hill with steep slopes, is now old or folk usage;[13][14] Miron Costin has an army drawn up „pe supt un mal” “below a steep bank”.[12] The sense “hill” lives on in Muscel and Dâmbovița and in the glossaries of Muntenia and Bessarabia.[2][13][14] From the steep side of a hollow it came to mean the wall of a ditch, pit or ravine, and then the strip of land along a river, lake or sea, the shore, which is the main sense today.[4][3] Seventeenth-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it to gloss Slavonic words for a steep slope and a precipice.[15] Klein's dictionary of 1801 gives it as “shore” and also as a whitish, not very hard stone, and the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 adds clay, slate and sandstone.[16][17] The sense “clay” is still regional in Maramureș and Oltenia.[18][19]

Because a mal is big and heavy, folk speech compares a large person to one: un mal de om “a giant of a man”, cât un mal “huge”.[12][3] The shore sense gave set phrases such as a se îneca la mal “to fail just short of the goal” and a ieși la mal “to bring something off”.[3] Ciorănescu reports the view that Hungarian mál comes from Romanian, which others reject;[1] Wiktionary finds a loan plausible only for its sense “river bank”.[2][1]

Timeline

  • 1433 – Mal, a village in Banat, the first record.[10][11][5]
  • 1445 – another place name Mal.[5]
  • 1660 – the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss words for “steep bank” and “precipice” with mal.[15]
  • 1688 – malurile “the banks” of a river in the Bucharest Bible.[20]
  • 1801 – Klein's dictionary: “shore” and a kind of soft stone.[16]
  • 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda: shore, clay, slate and sandstone.[17]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A bank or shore: the strip of land, often sloping, along a river, lake or sea; by extension the land beside the water.[3][21]
  2. The steep side of a river bed, ditch or pit; a ravine.[3][4]
  3. (regional) A mound or low hill with steep sides.[3][4]
  4. (regional) Clay.[18][19]

Word family

  • măluros
  • Aromanian mal

Usage notes

MDA2 and the DLR also have a separate mal, a variant of meal.[4][12] The medical mal “illness” of the neologism dictionaries is a different word, from French.[22][23]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. mal
  3. ^ 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. 613
  4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1422
  5. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mal
  6. ^ Demiraj, Bardhyl (1997), Albanische Etymologien: Untersuchungen zum albanischen Erbwortschatz, Amsterdam / Atlanta: Rodopi (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 7), p. 254
  7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 183
  8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 652
  9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 609
  10. ^ a b Suciu, Coriolan (1966–1968), Dicționar istoric al localităților din Transilvania, I–II, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 1, s.v. mal
  11. ^ a b Hațegan, Ioan (2013), Dicționar istoric al așezărilor din Banat, sec. XI–XX. Atestări documentare și cartografice, Timișoara, p. 242
  12. ^ 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. mal
  13. ^ a b Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. s.v. mal
  14. ^ a b Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. s.v. mal
  15. ^ 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. mal
  16. ^ a b 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. 394
  17. ^ a b 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. 370
  18. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. mal
  19. ^ a b Cazacu, Boris (coord.) et al. (1967), Glosar dialectal. Oltenia, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 61
  20. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Iezechiil 47:12
  21. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. mal
  22. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. mal
  23. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. mal
Cite this entry

“Mal.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/mal. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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