muncitor

Forms

muncitor m (plural muncitori, feminine equivalent muncitoare)^[1] Old texts write muncitoriu: „Pavelu... întreba-se întru învățături cu muncitoriu oarecarele” “Paul... disputed daily in the school of a certain tyrant” (Codicele Voronețean).^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian munci + -tor, from the verb “to torment; to toil” with the agent suffix.^[2][3][4][1] Tiktin and Cihac also group it with munci and the noun muncă.^[5][6] The verb is from Old Church Slavonic мѫчити (mǫčiti, “to torment”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), the Acts of the Apostles, where muncitoriu renders the “tyrant” in whose school Paul disputed; the New Testament of 1648 and the Bible of 1688 have tiran in that verse.^[2][4][5] The early sense is “tormentor, torturer”, following the old sense of munci “to torture”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries the word meant a torturer or a tyrant, and in church texts the devil: Coresi has the three youths who overcame „muncitoriul fărăleage” “the lawless tormentor”, and a text of about 1580 tells how „muncitorii ce o lega” “the torturers who were binding her” fell to the ground.^[2][4] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it for Slavonic words for “tormentor”, and the Bible of 1688 hands the unforgiving servant over „muncitorilor” “to the tormentors” (Matthew 18:34).^[7][8] Antim still uses it in this sense.^[5]

The newer senses follow munci “to toil”: Cihac in 1879 glosses the word “laborious; working man”, and Barcianu in 1886 gives both “industrious; worker, day labourer” and “tormentor”.^[6][9] DEX 2009 marks the torture sense obsolete.^[3] In Marxist usage clasa muncitoare “the working class” named the proletariat.^[4][10] Socialist-era compounds include muncitor-elev, a worker finishing his studies without leaving production, recorded in 1961, and muncitor-constructor “construction worker”, recorded in 1974.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – muncitoriu “tyrant, tormentor” in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[4][2]
• c. 1580 – muncitorii “the torturers” in an old text.^[2]
• 1649 – muncitori glosses a Slavonic word for “tormentors” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[7]
• 1688 – muncitorilor “to the tormentors” in the Bucharest Bible.^[8]
• 1879 – “laborious; working man” in Cihac.^[6]
• 1886 – both “worker” and “tormentor” in Barcianu.^[9]
• 1961 – the compound muncitor-elev.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A worker or labourer: a person who works directly at producing goods or at keeping and repairing them, often with his hands.^[3][4][1]
2. (obsolete) A torturer or tormentor; in church texts, the devil.^[3][4]

Adjective

1. Working, who works: clasa muncitoare “the working class”.^[3][4][1]
2. By extension, hard-working, industrious.^[3][1]
3. (obsolete) Who tortures or torments.^[3]

Word family

• muncitorime
• muncitoresc

Related words

• munci
• muncă

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. muncitor
3. ^ 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. 682
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 76
5. ^ 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. muncitor
6. ^ a b c Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 205
7. ^ 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. muncitori
8. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mt 18:34
9. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 396
10. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 661
11. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. muncitor