muritor

Forms

muritor m or n (feminine singular muritoare, masculine plural muritori, feminine/neuter plural muritoare)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian muri + -tor, from the verb “to die” with the agent suffix.^{[2][3][1][4][5]} Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of muri, which is morior (“to die”), remade as *morīre.^[6] Its negative nemuritor “immortal” belongs to the same family.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a text of Udriște Năsturel from before 1648, printed in Gaster's chrestomathy: „Și într-acest trup muritor purta viiața celor fără de trupuri” “and in this mortal body he bore the life of the bodiless ones”.^[5][4][3]

Semantic evolution

From the first the word was both an adjective, “subject to death”, and a noun, “a mortal, a human being”; the old form muritoriu appears in 1670 and in a Menaion of 1776.^[5] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has the plural muritori (2 Corinthians 6:9).^[7] In the 19th century it took the figurative sense “passing, not eternal”, of deeds and things;^[5][8] the noun, used mostly in poetry, came to mean simply “a person”.^[9][10]

The phrase muritor de foame “starving, destitute”, literally “dying of hunger”, is recorded from the 19th century in Golescu, Alecsandri, Caragiale and Ispirescu.^[5][4]

Timeline

• before 1648 – trup muritor “mortal body” in Udriște Năsturel, the first record.^[5][4]
• 1670 – the old form muritoriu.^[5]
• 1688 – muritori in the Bucharest Bible.^[7]
• 1776 – trupul tău cel muritoriu in a Menaion.^[5]
• 1870 – Costinescu glosses it with French mortel and the noun muritorii as “mankind”.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. mortal: not living forever, bound to die.^[2][1]
2. (figurative) transient, short-lived; doomed to be forgotten.^[3][12]
3. muritor de foame: destitute, extremely poor.^[2][3]

Noun

1. A mortal: a human being, seen as a passing creature; pământean: un simplu muritor “an ordinary mortal”.^[2][3]
2. (rare) A dying person; muribund.^[3]

Word family

• nemuritor

Related words

• muri
• moarte
• mort

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 683
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, 80
4. ^ 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. muritor
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. muritor
6. ^ a b 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
7. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 2 Cor 6:9
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 843
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 414
11. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 126
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional