mireasă

Forms

mireasă f (plural mirese, masculine equivalent mire)^[1] A regional form is mirează, and the diminutives include miresuță and miresucă.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian mire + -easă, the feminine of the word for “bridegroom”, as MDA2, DEX, the DLR, Tiktin and Wiktionary give it.^{[2][4][5][3][1]} Ciorănescu also lists it among the derivatives of the masculine.^[6]

The origin of the masculine is less clear.^[6] The usual view takes it from Latin mīles (“soldier”), with a change of meaning that Tiktin links to the time when Roman soldiers began to marry local women.^[7][2][6] Ciorănescu finds this hard to accept for the sense and proposes a link with Modern Greek μύρον (míron, “ointment, chrism”), since the Orthodox wedding crowning goes with a gesture of anointing.^[6] On this view the feminine would continue Ancient Greek μυρόεσσα (muróessa), the feminine of μυρόεις (muróeis, “anointed”), and would not be a Romanian derivative.^[6] For the masculine Scriban compared Albanian mirë (“good”), and MDA2 notes the same Albanian word.^[8][2] Ciorănescu rejects the older proposals for the masculine: a Dacian word (Hasdeu), a Turkish word for “chief” (Pascu), a Cuman word for “prince” (Philippide), and a Latin form rebuilt from a Greek word for “adolescent” (Diculescu).^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Eustratie's Pravila of 1632.^[3] Dosoftei's version of Joel 2:16 has „iasă ... mireasa din cămara mirelui ei” “let the bride go out of her bridegroom's chamber”.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word names a woman on her wedding day or just before it.^[4][2] Scriban objected that in Transylvania and Bukovina it was also said of a fiancée, after German Braut; elsewhere the fiancée is a logodnică.^[8] In church language mireasa Domnului or mireasa lui Dumnezeu is a nun, and mireasa alone can mean the Church; in the ballad Miorița mireasa lumii “the bride of the world” is death.^[2][3] A wedding dance and its tune are called mireasa too, and the name passed to an ornamental plant, Coleus blumei, in Moldavia.^[2][9][4]

The word went into Hungarian as myirásza.^[6][8]

Timeline

• 1632 – first record, in Eustratie's Pravila.^[3]
• 1683 – mireasa in Dosoftei's version of Joel 2:16.^[10]
• 1688 – four occurrences in the Bucharest Bible, among them Song of Songs 4:8.^[11]
• 1825 – mireasă in the Lexicon de la Buda, with Latin sponsa and German Braut.^[12]
• 1929 – mireasă as a Moldavian name of the plant Coleus blumei.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bride: a woman on the day of her wedding or close to it.^[4][2][1]
2. (church) Mireasa Domnului: a nun.^[4][2]
3. A folk wedding dance, and the tune it is danced to.^[2]
4. An ornamental herbaceous plant with leaves green-yellow at the edge and red in the centre (Coleus blumei).^[4][9]

Related words

• mire

Usage notes

Common expressions include a plânge ca o mireasă “to cry hard”, a mânca ca o mireasă “to eat very little” and a sta ca o mireasă “to sit idle”.^[4][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 2, 22
3. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mireasă
4. ^ 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. 659
5. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mireasă
6. ^ a b c d e f g 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. mire
7. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mire
8. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 813
9. ^ a b c Panțu, Zach. C. (1929), Plantele cunoscute de poporul român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane și științifice, 2nd ed., București: Editura Casei Școalelor, p. 177
10. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mire
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Song 4:8
12. ^ 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. 393