moarte

Forms

moarte f (plural morți)^[1] The old genitive-dative was morției or morței: the Psaltirea Scheiană has „frica morției cădzu spre mene” “the fear of death fell upon me”.^[2][3] MDA2 also records a regional genitive moartei and an old variant murte.^[3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written моарте.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mors (“death”), through its accusative.^[4][3][5][1] The Latin noun comes from Proto-Indo-European *mértis (“death”), from *mer- (“to die”), and is related to morior (“to die”).^[1]

The word survives in Aromanian moarte and Megleno-Romanian moarti.^[4][6][7] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian muart, Italian morte, French mort, Catalan mort, Spanish muerte and Portuguese morte;^[8] Ciorănescu also compares Albanian mortë.^[4][8] Romanian mort “dead” and muri “to die” are related, and mortal, mortalitate and mortuar are later borrowings from French.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500–1520), and the 16th-century psalters use the word often.^[3][9] A text of before 1550 in the Cuvente den bătrâni already has the sense “end of life”: „De moarte nu te temei” “you did not fear death”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Beside the end of life, the old language used the word for a killing: a face moarte de om meant “to kill someone”, and a-și face moarte “to kill oneself”.^[3][10] It also named a deadly epidemic, a sense now old and popular, and death sentence: condamnat la moarte.^[5][11] Death personified, pictured with a scythe, appears in folk speech and in phrases such as a vedea moartea cu ochii “to see death with one's own eyes”.^[11][12]

Figuratively the word means ruin or end (moartea unui imperiu) and, in e moartea mea, something one loves dearly.^[11][5] The press used moartea albă for death from cocaine (1982) and for death by freezing in the mountains (1985).^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – moarte in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[3][9]
• before 1550 – „De moarte nu te temei” in the Cuvente den bătrâni.^[2]
• 1569–1575 – the compound moarte-purtătoriu “death-bearing”.^[2]
• c. 1573–1578 – the genitive morției in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[2][10]
• 1646 – „i s-au prilejit moartea de mâinile lui” “his death came about at his hands”.^[2]
• 1982 – moartea albă “death from drugs” in the press.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. death: the end of life, the stopping of all vital functions;^[5][3][1] fără de moarte immortal;^[5][3][1] de moarte deadly, also terrible.^[5][3][1]
2. A killing, murder; by extension, a massacre;^[5] moarte de om (colloquial) a dreadful crush of people.^[5]
3. The death penalty, execution.^[5][11]
4. (dated, popular) Mortality caused by a scourge; an epidemic.^[5]
5. Death personified, imagined as a figure with a scythe.^[11][12]
6. (figurative) Ruin, end, disappearance.^[5][11]

Related words

• mort
• muri
• mortal
• Aromanian moarte
• Latin mors

Usage notes

Common phrases include pe viață și pe moarte “with all one's might”, între viață și moarte “at death's door”, cu moartea în suflet “in despair” and a azvârli moartea-n țigani “to blame someone else”.^[5] The plant moartea-puricelui is Inula conyza.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. moarte
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 34
4. ^ a b c d 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. moarte
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 663
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 701
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 194
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5688
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 6:5
10. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. moarte
11. ^ a b c d e f Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 823
12. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 404
13. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)