mie

Forms

mie f (plural mii)^[1] The old language used mie as its plural too: „Scoseși întru pustie patru mie de bărbați” “thou leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men” (Codicele Voronețean).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mīlia, the plural of mīlle (“thousand”).^[4][3][5][1] Wiktionary traces the Latin numeral to Proto-Indo-European *smih₂ǵʰéslih₂ (“one thousand”).^[1] The Latin plural, not the singular, became the Romanian word, and it is a doublet of milă (“mile”), from the same Latin plural.^[1][6]

The word survives in all four branches of Romanian: Aromanian njilje, Megleno-Romanian mil'ă and Istro-Romanian mil'e.^[4][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian mille, Spanish mil and Portuguese mil, and Albanian mijë was borrowed from the same Latin plural.^[4][5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is the plural miile in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century (Psalm 67).^[9] MDA2 dates the word to the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), which has patru mie de bărbați “four thousand men”;^[3][2][10] Tiktin's first record is the same psalm verse in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3][2][10]

Semantic evolution

Besides the exact number, the word was used from early on, often in the plural, for a very large, indefinite number: mii de glasuri “thousands of voices”, mii și mii “countless”.^[11][3] Phrases such as a avea o mie și o sută pe cap “to have a thousand things on one's mind” build on this sense.^[11] Tiktin records o mie și o sută for “in great quantity, at length”.^[10]

As a noun it also names a banknote of a thousand lei, for which slang has miar.^[11][4] Ciorănescu lists further derivatives: miaș “captain over a thousand soldiers”, înmii “to multiply a thousandfold” and miime “a thousandth”.^[4]

Timeline

• early 16th century – the plural miile in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[9]
• c. 1563–1583 – patru mie de bărbați “four thousand men” in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][2]
• 1582 – trei mie de bărbați “three thousand men” in a dated text.^[2]
• 1648 – patru mie de oameni in the New Testament of 1648.^[2]
• 1688 – the plural mii throughout the Bucharest Bible.^[12]

Meanings

Numeral

1. thousand: the number between 999 and 1001, used before a noun with de: o mie de kilometri “a thousand kilometres”.^[11][3][1]
2. (in the plural, often as hyperbole) A very large, indefinite number: mii de oameni “thousands of people”.^[11][3]

Noun

1. The abstract number one thousand.^[11]
2. A banknote of a thousand lei.^[11]

Word family

• miar
• înmii
• miime

Related words

• Aromanian njilje
• Latin mīlle

Usage notes

Mie is also the stressed dative of the pronoun eu, “to me”, a different word, from Latin mihi.^[4][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. mie
3. ^ 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. 2, 7
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. mie
5. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 92
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 806
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 798
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 748
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 67:18
10. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mie
11. ^ 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. 1, 652
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 24:60