muncă

Forms

muncă f (plural munci)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic мѫка (mǫka, “torment, torture”).^[2][3][4][1] The Old Church Slavonic word translated Ancient Greek βάσανος (básanos, “torment”) and κόλασις (kólasis, “punishment”), and was used of the torments of hell.^[5] It continues Proto-Slavic *mǫ̀ka (“torment, torture”), whose descendants include Bulgarian мъка (mǎka), Serbo-Croatian muka and Russian мука (muka).^[6][2] Vasmer relates it by ablaut to *mękъkъ (“soft”) and to Lithuanian minkyti (“to knead”).^[7]

The Megleno-Romanian cognate is moncă.^[2][8] Cihac compared Hungarian munka (“work”), which has the same Slavic source.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The early 16th-century Psaltirea Hurmuzaki has muncă (Psalm 68:24), and the later psalters have it and its plural munci in several psalms.^[10][11] The sense was “torment, suffering”: the Psaltirea Scheiană speaks of the throne of lawlessness ce face munci “that makes torments”.^[12][3]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the word meant torture inflicted on the condemned and, with veșnic, de vecie or a vecilor, the torments of hell: munca de vecie in Coresi's Gospel homilies.^[12][13] Neculce still uses it of the Turks torturing a man until he named his wealth.^[13][14] From “torment” it passed to “toil, hard work”: a manuscript of 1675 says that priests cannot live fără de muncă și fără de lucru “without toil and without work”, and the old law codes use it for the product of work.^[13][15] The work sense became the main one in the modern language, and the torture sense is now old or popular; the plural munci “labour pains” lives on in the dialects.^[4][16] In Muntenia muncă also means the harvest of grain.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – muncă in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 68:24).^[10]
• c. 1551-1558 – muncile in the Psaltirea Voroneț.^[17]
• c. 1573-1578 – munci “torments” in the Psaltirea Scheiană, MDA2's first record.^[3][12]
• 1579 – munca veacilor “the torment of the ages” in a text of that year.^[12]
• 1648 – fiind în muncă “being in torment” in the New Testament of 1648.^[12]
• 1675 – muncă “toil” in a manuscript of that year.^[13]
• 1688 – munci and muncă many times in the Bucharest Bible.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. work, labour: physical or mental activity directed to an aim, by which people change the things of nature to meet their needs; in the plural, field work.^[4][19][1]
2. (concrete) What is gained by work; agoniseală, earnings.^[4][15]
3. effort, striving; an occupation.^[4]
4. Muncă silnică: hard labour, a prison sentence with forced work.^[3][19]
5. (dated or popular, in the plural) tortures, torments; the torments of hell.^[4][3]
6. (dated or popular) Pain, suffering; in the plural, labour pains.^[4][3]

Word family

• munci
• muncitor
• muncitorime
• muncitoresc

Related words

• mucenic
• Old Church Slavonic мѫка (mǫka)

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. muncă
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 76
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. 1, 682
5. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org, p. s.v. мѫка
6. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 329
7. ^ Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress, p. s.v. мука
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 195
9. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 205
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 68:24
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 72:5
12. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. muncă
13. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. muncă
14. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 192
15. ^ a b Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 193
16. ^ a b Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. 272
17. ^ 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 139:10
18. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Luke 16:23
19. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. muncă