monstru

Forms

monstru m (plural monștri)^[1] An old plural monstruri occurs in 1830: „nereide dasupra pe monstruri de mare” “nereids riding on sea monsters”.^[2][3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written монстру.^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin monstrum (“portent, monster”) or French monstre: DEX 2009, the DLR and NODEX put Latin first, MDA2 and MDN French, and DN compares both.^{[4][2][5][3][6][7][1]} Tiktin gives Latin and Ciorănescu French.^[8][9] The word also occurs south of the Danube as Aromanian monstru, which Ciorănescu thinks comes straight from Latin.^[9]

The Latin noun is formed from moneō (“to warn, advise”) with the instrument suffix -trum; it was a religious term for an unnatural event taken as a warning of the gods, a portent.^[1][10][11] French borrowed it about 1120.^[11] The Latin verb mōnstrō (“to show”), from the same root, gave Romanian mustra.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1722, in Dimitrie Cantemir's Hronic: „ce monstru (arătare) și ce groaznică ciudesă” “what a monster (apparition) and what a dreadful marvel”.^[8][2] MDA2 cites the same text in its edition of 1901.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Negulici in 1848 defines it as something made against the laws of nature, of immeasurable size, prodigious, very ugly.^[13] Costinescu in 1870 adds the figurative sense, a person without pity or compassion.^[14] The sense “giant, colossus” led to an adjectival use, “huge, out of the ordinary”.^[9][4] The press forms compounds with it, such as copil-monstru, film-monstru and petrecere-monstru.^[15] Monstru sacru, after the French phrase, is a great star of stage or screen.^[6]

Its derivatives are French loans: monstruos from monstrueux and monstruozitate from monstruosité.^[9]

Timeline

• 1722 – monstru in Cantemir's Hronic, the first record.^[8]
• 1830 – the plural monstruri “sea monsters”.^[2]
• 1848 – Negulici defines it as a being against nature.^[13]
• 1870 – the figurative sense “a pitiless person”, in Costinescu.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A monster: a mythological being whose body joins parts of different animals, or of man and animal.^[4][1]
2. A being born with great physical anomalies;^[4][7] (figurative) a person of great moral defects, cruel and depraved.^[4][7]
3. A giant, a hulking creature;^[4][6] (figurative, adjectival) huge, extraordinary: o coadă monstru la intrare.^[4][6]
4. monstru sacru: a great star of the cinema or the stage.^[6]

Word family

• monstruos
• monstruozitate

Related words

• mustra
• Latin monstrum

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. monstru
3. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 52
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. 672
5. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. monstru
6. ^ a b c d e Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. monstru
7. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. monstru
8. ^ 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. monstru
9. ^ 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. monstru
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. monstrum
11. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 831
13. ^ 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. s.v. monstru
14. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 115
15. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. mónstru