moș

Forms

moș m (plural moși)^[1]

Etymology

The origin of the word is disputed.^[2][1] DEX, DLR and MDA2 take it as a back-formation from Romanian moașă “grandmother; old woman; midwife”,^[3][4][5] and Wiktionary also notes that the feminine appears to be the older word.^[1] For the feminine MDA2 compares Albanian moshë (“age”),^[6] and most scholars since Miklosich and Hasdeu have taken the word as a native one of the pre-Roman substrate, the same word as the Albanian noun (so Philippide, Pascu and P. Papahagi).^[2] Tiktin compares the Albanian mocë (“old man; age”) and calls the word much discussed.^[7] Popovici also gives the Albanian word beside the Istro-Romanian form.^[8]

Ciorănescu disagrees: for him the word's presence in all the dialects, its general use and the compound strămoș, with a prefix found only in the old inherited vocabulary, show that it is Latin.^[2] He proposes Latin annōsus (“full of years, aged”), with the loss of initial /a/ as in mătușă from amita, and a final consonant reshaped after the plural, as in coș; he grants that the change of /n/ to /m/ is harder to explain (compare măgar and miel).^[2] Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[1] P. Papahagi's derivation from mamă with the suffix -oș is rejected by Ciorănescu.^[2]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian mosh, Megleno-Romanian moș and Istro-Romanian moș.^[2][9][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from about 1480, in the Slavonic-language charters of the Romanian principalities.^[7] In Romanian texts it appears in the early 16th century: the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki has the plural forms moșii and moșilor in several psalms (Ps 77:3, Ps 105:7), and MDA2 also dates its first record to this psalter.^[10][11][5] Tiktin's early quotations, a document of 1657 and a liturgical text of 1702, show the sense “forefathers, ancestors”: „cum au apucat ei din moșii lor și din părinții lor” “as they had it from their forefathers and their parents”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The old senses are “grandfather” and, in the plural, “ancestors”, still found in the phrase din moși-strămoși “from time immemorial”;^[7][3] Tiktin records an old kinship series tată, moș, strămoș “father, grandfather, great-grandfather”.^[7][3] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons, from Mardarie's of 1649 on, gloss it with the Slavonic word for “grandfather”.^[12] From these came “old man”, now the main sense, and its use as a respectful form of address; in Moldavia it also means “uncle”.^[2][3] In older usage moș was also the first holder of an inherited piece of land, and moșie “estate” is among its derivatives.^[5][2]

The plural moși names the days of remembrance of the dead, when alms are given, and also the great fair held in Bucharest on the Saturday before Pentecost.^[3][5] In folk belief moșii are also beings that drive away winter and the nine days of March that follow the “old women's days” (zilele babelor).^[3] Folk and festive figures are called Moș: Moș Crăciun “Father Christmas”, Moș Nicolae “Saint Nicholas”, who bring presents to children, Moș Martin “the bear” and Moș Ene, sleep personified.^[5][3][1]

The word passed into neighbouring languages: Ukrainian and Bulgarian borrowed it, and Hungarian has mósuly “old man”, recorded from 1874 after a Székely mós “uncle” of 1833;^[2][13] TESz derives mós from moș and mósuly from the articled form moșul.^[2][13]

Timeline

• c. 1480 – first record, in the Slavonic charters of the Romanian principalities.^[7]
• c. 1500–1520 – moșii and moșilor in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10][5]
• 1581 – the feminine moașă in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[6]
• 1649 – glossed “grandfather” in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1657 – din moșii lor “from their forefathers” in a document.^[7]
• 1688 – moșii in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]
• 1833 – Hungarian mós “uncle”, a Székely word taken from Romanian.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. An old man; also a form of address used by a younger person to an older man: Bună ziua, moș Ioane!^[3][5][1]
2. (dated, regional) grandfather;^[3][5] (chiefly in the plural) a remote ancestor, forefather, strămoș: din moși-strămoși “handed down from generation to generation”.^[3][5]
3. (regional) uncle.^[3][2]
4. In names of folk and festive figures: Moș Crăciun “Father Christmas”, Moș Nicolae “Saint Nicholas”, Moș Martin “the bear”; also the masked old man in folk plays.^[5][3][1]
5. (in the plural, in folk tradition) Days on which services and alms are held for the dead; the traditional fair held in Bucharest on the Saturday before Pentecost, and by extension any fair with public amusements: s-a strâns lumea ca la moși “a crowd gathered as at a fair”.^[3][5]
6. (technical) The hooked half of a hook-and-eye fastening; the male half of a press stud.^[3][5]

Word family

• moși
• moșit
• moșic
• moșie
• moșier
• moșieresc
• moșnegește
• strămoș
• strămoșesc

Related words

• babă
• moașă
• Aromanian mosh
• Albanian moshë

Usage notes

Many expressions use the word: de când cu moș Adam “since the days of old”, a spune moși pe groși “to talk nonsense”, la moșii cei verzi “never”, a-i veni moș Ene pe la gene “to grow sleepy”.^[3][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. moș
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 676
4. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. moș
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 61
6. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 34
7. ^ 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. moș
8. ^ a b Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 127
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 667
10. ^ 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 77:3
11. ^ 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 105:7
12. ^ 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. moș
13. ^ a b c Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 2, 964
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mark 10:29