Etymology and origin of the Romanian word masă
masă1 mass
Etymology tree of masă1
From the same root · masă1
Pronunciation
- /ˈma.sə/[1]
Forms
masă f (plural mase)[1]
Etymology
The word for “mass” is borrowed from French masse, a neologism of the early 19th century.[2][3][4][5] The DLR, MDA2 and Tiktin also name German Masse as a source;[4] DEX names only the French word.[3][4][5][2] The dictionaries of neologisms also compare Italian massa and Latin massa.[6] The BER glosses the Latin word “substance; primeval matter” and traces it to Ancient Greek μᾶζα (mâza, “dough”).[7]
The word for “table” has a separate source: Romanian inherited it from mēnsa.[2][8]
Earliest recorded meaning
Tiktin's first record is in Molnar in 1800.[5] The DLR quotes Molnar's „din această masă, ca dintru o plămădire” “from this mass, as from a dough”.[3] MDA2 gives Gheorghe Șincai's translation of 1804–1808 as the first record, and the DLR quotes masa aerului “the mass of the air” from it.[4][3]
Semantic evolution
The first sense was a heap of matter forming one body; physics gave the sense of the quantity of matter of a body.[2][3] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 adds the legal sense, the whole body of a bankrupt's creditors (massa creditorilor).[9] The sense “compact crowd of people, the broad masses” is the first one in DEX 2009.[2]
Timeline
- 1800 – first record, in Molnar.[5]
- 1804–1808 – masa aerului “the mass of the air” in Gheorghe Șincai's translation.[4][3]
- 1848 – massă in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms, with the legal sense.[9]
Meanings
Noun
- A large compact crowd of people seen as a whole; in the plural, the broad masses of the population.[2]
- A heap of things gathered into one body; a solid, compact block: masă verde “green fodder”, mase plastice “plastics”.[2][4]
- (physics) The quantity of matter of a body, a characteristic physical magnitude: masă atomică “atomic mass”.[2][10]
- (law) The total debts or assets of a bankrupt; the estate of a succession or a business.[2]
masă2 table
Pronunciation
- /ˈma.sə/[1]
Forms
masă f (plural mese)[1]
Etymology
The word for “table” is inherited from Latin mēnsa (“table”).[8][2][4][5][1] The Latin noun is probably the feminine of mēnsus (“measured”), the past participle of mētior (“to measure”).[11]
It survives in Aromanian measã and Megleno-Romanian męsă.[8][12][13] Its Romance cognates include French moise, Spanish mesa and Portuguese mesa.[8][14]
Romanian lent it to its neighbours: Bulgarian маса (masa) is from the Romanian word,[8][15] and so is Turkish masa, which Tietze says came into Turkish, with the thing, in the middle of the 19th century.[8][16]
Earliest recorded meaning
Tiktin dates the word to 1520, and the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century has masa (Psalm 22:6).[5][4][17]
Semantic evolution
From the piece of furniture the word came to mean the food served on it, a meal, lunch or dinner, and a feast, and the people sitting round it.[2][8] Ciorănescu also records the sense “bench, stall”.[8] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss it with Old Church Slavonic трапеза (trapeza) and Old Church Slavonic платно (platno) “cloth”;[18] a regional sense “tablecloth” survives in Argeș.[19]
Derivatives include măsar “carpenter” in Transylvania, mescioară “little table”, mesean and comesean “table companion”.[8] For the Banat măsai “tablecloth”, Pușcariu supposed a Latin *mensalium and Candrea a Bulgarian source, while Ciorănescu takes it as a Romanian formation.[8]
Timeline
- early 16th century – masa in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 22:6).[17][4]
- 1520 – Tiktin's first date.[5]
- 1570 – masa in Coresi's psalter.[17]
- c. 1660 – glossed by Slavonic трапеза in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.[18]
- mid-19th century – borrowed into Turkish as masa.[16]
Meanings
Noun
- A table: a piece of furniture with a flat top on one or more legs, used for eating, writing and the like: masă rotundă “round table”.[2][4]
- The people sitting round a table to eat.[2]
- What is eaten; a meal, lunch or dinner; a feast: după masă “in the afternoon”, a lua masa “to have lunch or dinner”.[2][8]
- A name for various objects or parts of objects shaped like a table: masă de operație “operating table”.[2]
Word family
- măsar
- mescioară
- mesean
- comesean
- meselnic
Related words
- Aromanian measã
- masiv
- masaj
Usage notes
Cu (sau pe) nepusă masă means “unexpectedly, without warning”;[2] a pune masa is “to lay the table” and a strânge masa “to clear it”.[2] The regional plurals măși and meși occur beside mese.[4]
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 622
- ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. masă
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1439
- ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. masă
- ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. masă
- ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 3, 677
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. masă
- ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. 254
- ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. masă
- ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
- ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională
- ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)
- ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5497
- ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 3, 676
- ^ a b Tietze, Andreas (2002–2018), Tarihi ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugatı, Istanbul: Simurg; Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, p. 151
- ^ a b c 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 22:6
- ^ 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. masa
- ^ Constantinescu, Grigore; Constantinescu, Eugenia (2014), Glosar. Arealul etnocultural Argeș-Muscel, p. 65
Related etymologies
Cite this entry
“Masă.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/mas%C4%83. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.
Last edited on . ·