muri

Forms

Present mor, third person moare; past participle murit; fourth conjugation.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin morior (“to die”).^[2][3][4][1] Romanian continues the fourth-conjugation infinitive ⟨morīrī⟩, which Plautus, Ennius and Terence use beside the classical ⟨morī⟩.^[5][1][2]

The word survives in all four branches of Romanian: Aromanian mor, Megleno-Romanian mor and Istro-Romanian mor.^[2][6][7] Its Romance cognates include Italian morire, Catalan morir, Spanish morir and French mourir.^[2] Ciorănescu compares mort, moarte and amorți.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century: „E voi ca oamenii veți muri” “but you shall die like men” (Psalm 81:7).^[8][3][9] The Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583) has Paul's words „Eu nu numai legatu se fiu, ce și se moriu gata suntu” “I am ready not only to be bound but also to die” (Acts 21:13), with the old first person moriu.^[10][8]

Semantic evolution

Ciorănescu calls it a word in general use across the whole territory.^[2] Beside “to die”, it is used by exaggeration of strong feelings and needs: mor de sete, de foame, de râs “I am dying of thirst, of hunger, of laughter”.^[10][4] With după it means “to be madly in love with”: Tiktin quotes Sadoveanu's „Grecul murea după româncă” “the Greek was dying for the Romanian girl”.^[10][4] Of plants it means “to wither”, and figuratively, of sounds and lights, “to fade away”: „Îi murea vorba pe limbă” “the word died on his lips”.^[4][10]

Old derivatives are muritor “mortal”, nemuritor “immortal” and nemurire “immortality”.^[11] Caragiale coined murind “monk who tends the dying” on the model of French mourant.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – „veți muri” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[3][9]
• c. 1551–1558 – muriți in the Voroneț psalter.^[9]
• c. 1563–1583 – moriu in the Codicele Voronețean.^[10][8]
• 1570 – murind “dying” in Coresi's psalter.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To die, to cease to live.^[4][3][1]
2. (hyperbolic) To suffer greatly, to be overcome by a feeling or need: a muri de foame “to be starving; to be very poor”.^[4][3]
3. (with după) To be passionately fond of, to adore.^[4][10]
4. (of plants) To wither, dry up.^[4]
5. (figurative) To fade away, die out.^[4][10]

Word family

• muricios
• nemurire
• nemuritor
• muritor

Related words

• mort
• moarte
• amorți
• Latin morior

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. muri
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 79
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 683
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română
8. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. muri
9. ^ a b c 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 81:7
10. ^ 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. muri
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. muri
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 48:9