munci

Forms

munci (present muncesc, third-person singular present muncește, past participle muncit), 4th conjugation^[1] A Banat variant is muci.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic мѫчити (mǫčiti, “to torture, torment”), with its reflexive мѫчити сѧ (mǫčiti sę), according to MDA2, the DLR, DLRLV, DEX and Tiktin.^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Ciorănescu instead lists the verb among the derivatives of muncă, itself from Slavonic мѫка (mǫka, “torment”).^[7] The Slavonic verb is from Proto-Slavic *mǫčiti (“to torment, torture”), continued in Polish męczyć and Serbo-Croatian mučiti.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and the DLR give the first record in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the sense “to torture”: „Legați se-i aducu întru Ierusalim, se-i munciească” “to bring them bound to Jerusalem, to torture them”.^[2][3] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The old sense was “to torture”, the meaning of the Slavonic verb, and the 16th- and 17th-century texts use it for the torment of prisoners and martyrs.^[3][6][9] From it came “to make suffer, to torment”, said of feelings and thoughts, and the reflexive a se munci “to suffer; to toil, to strive”;^[5][2][6] a se munci cu gândul is “to rack one's brains”.^[5][2][6] The sense “to work” is already found in the old literary language of Moldavia and Wallachia, in the Pravila and the Îndreptarea legii.^[4] Klein's dictionary of 1801 glosses muncesc with Latin laboro, operor.^[10] Șăineanu compared this shift with that of the synonym agonisi.^[11] Today “to work” is the main sense, and “to torture” is old and popular.^[5]

The noun muncă went the same way, from “torment” to “work”.^[7] Ciorănescu also records the derivatives muncitor “worker” and muncitorime “the workers”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – munciească “to torture” in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[2][3]
• c. 1573–1578 – muncit in the Psaltirea Scheiană, Psalm 87.^[12][6]
• 1574 – a munci “to torment” in a Tetraevangelion.^[3]
• 1654 – „și-i munci cu multe munci” “and tortured them with many tortures” in a manuscript printed by Gaster.^[3][6]
• c. 1660 – muncesc in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing томлю “I torment”.^[13]
• 1688 – muncești, muncit and other forms in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]
• 1801 – muncesc “I work” in Klein's dictionary.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To work: to spend physical or mental effort to produce or make something; to have an occupation;^[5][2][1] (transitive) to work the land.^[5][2][1]
2. (reflexive) To take pains, to toil, to strive.^[5][2]
3. (transitive, old and popular) To torture.^[5][2]
4. (reflexive and intransitive, old and popular) To suffer physically or morally;^[5][2] (transitive, of feelings and thoughts) to torment, to preoccupy;^[5][2] a se munci cu gândul “to agonize over something”.^[5][2]

Word family

• muncitor

Related words

• muncă

Usage notes

MDA2 records the phrase pe nemuncite “without working”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 76
3. ^ 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. munci
4. ^ 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, 194
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 682
6. ^ 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. munci
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 328
9. ^ 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. мѫчити
10. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 402
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 413
12. ^ 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 87:16
13. ^ 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. muncesc
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mark 5:7