mur

mur¹ blackberry bush

Pronunciation

• /mur/^[1]

Forms

mur m (plural muri)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the blackberry bush is inherited from Latin mōrus (“mulberry tree”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu and the REW give the same etymon.^[2][6][7] The Latin word is compared with Ancient Greek μόρον (móron, “black mulberry, blackberry”), from which Latin may have borrowed its fruit name mōrum.^[1][8]

Ciorănescu notes that the change of Latin /o/ to Romanian /u/ has not been explained satisfactorily, and he finds a source in the Ionic form Ancient Greek μοῦρον (moûron) (Diculescu) or in Modern Greek μουριά (mouriá) (Roesler) unlikely.^[2] Candrea and Densusianu also call the vowel change unexplained and note that it occurs in other Romance forms too.^[9] The Romance cognates include Italian moro.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a gloss in the New Testament of 1648, which explains the sycamore of Luke 19:4: „Smochin ... alții zic că-i mur” “fig tree ... others say it is a mur”.^[5][4] In the old language the word named the mulberry tree, the sense of its Latin etymon: Dosoftei's verse psalter has „Murii le-au bătutu-le cu brumă” “he struck their mulberry trees with frost”.^[5][10]

Semantic evolution

Besides the mulberry tree, now dud, the word names the bramble with black berries, the sense DEX gives as the main one.^[4][3][10] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 already glosses it with the Latin names of the bramble and the dewberry.^[11] The mulberry sense survives in the old language and in regional speech, and a rare old sense is the sycamore fig.^[4][10]

Conachi used the plural as a colour word for eyes, glossy black ones beside green, blue and black.^[5] Ciorănescu derives Hungarian múr from this word.^[2]

Timeline

• 1648 – a gloss in the New Testament explains the sycamore as mur.^[5][4]
• c. 1650–1700 – mur “mulberry tree” in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[10]
• 1673 – murii “mulberry trees” in Dosoftei's verse psalter.^[5]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses mur as the bramble.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. Blackberry bush, bramble: a name for several thorny shrubs of the rose family with white or pink flowers and edible black fruit (Rubus).^[3][4]
2. (dated, regional) The mulberry tree (Morus).^[4][10]
3. (regional) The dewberry (Rubus caesius).^[4][12]
4. (obsolete, rare) The sycamore fig (Ficus sycomorus).^[4]

Word family

• mură
• muriș

mur² wall

Pronunciation

• /mur/^[1]

Forms

mur m (plural muri)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a wall is borrowed from Latin mūrus (“wall, defensive wall”), a learned word of the Romantic period first used in the 19th century.^[2][13][1] DEX and Scriban give only the Latin source;^[3][14][4] MDA2 names French mur and Ukrainian мур (mur) beside it.^[3][14][4] Marcu and Maneca compare the French word too, and Italian muro.^[15]

Aromanian kept the Latin word as an inherited one: Aromanian mur “wall”.^[2][16][6] Wiktionary suggests that a popular form may also have survived north of the Danube in the rare regional uses of Maramureș and Transylvania.^[1] The Maramureș dictionaries derive the regional sense “stone foundation” from the Latin word.^[17][18] The Latin noun goes back to *(H)moi-ro- (“building”).^[19]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Petru Maior's history of 1812: „Trupul lui Langhin spânzurat deasupra murului” “Langhin's body hung above the wall”.^[13][20] MDA2 dates the same passage to 1834, the year of the edition it uses.^[4]

Semantic evolution

19th-century writers used it for the walls of towns and monasteries: DLR quotes Heliade, Asachi, Barițiu, Filimon, Hasdeu and Alexandrescu.^[20] Eminescu wrote „Mur pe mur, stâncă pe stâncă, o cetate de giganți” “wall on wall, rock on rock, a fortress of giants”.^[13][21] DLRLC already labels it an obsolete Latinism.^[21][3]

In Maramureș the neuter plural mururi belongs to a regional sense, the base of dry-laid stones under a timber house.^[4][17][18] A Moldovan dictionary records it as a stone fence.^[22]

Timeline

• 1812 – murului “of the wall” in Petru Maior's history.^[13]
• 1848 – Negulici lists mur among the new words, with the Latin murus.^[23]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary has mur “wall of masonry”.^[24]

Meanings

Noun

1. (obsolete, literary) A wall, especially a defensive one.^[3][4][21]
2. (regional, Maramureș) The foundation of a log house, made of stones laid without mortar; plural mururi.^[4][18]