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naștere

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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word naștere

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1551–1553 the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel of Sibiu More words from the 16th century
Ultimate origin
Latin nascor
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Romanian naște
Romanian naștere

Pronunciation

  • /ˈnaʃ.te.re/[1]

Forms

naștere f (plural nașteri)[1] A regional and old variant is naștire: „Acum plângi durere naștirii sale” “now she weeps with the pain of her childbirth” (1779).[2][3]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of naște “to give birth, to be born”, used as a noun: from Romanian naște + -re.[4][2][5][3][1] Gabinschi instead counts it as inherited, the substantivized popular Latin infinitive Vulgar Latin *nascere, for literary Latin nascī (“to be born”).[6] Cihac traces the verb to the same Latin word.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a Gospel text of 1551–1553, at Matthew 19:28.[5] Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură (1581), MDA2's first record, uses it of the time before a child is born.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides the act of birth, the old language used the word for offspring, a family and a lineage: the Bucharest Bible of 1688 calls the generations of Noah nașterile lui.[2][3] Feast names follow from the birth of Christ and the saints: Nașterea Domnului is Christmas, Nașterea Maicii Domnului the feast of 8 September.[5][4]

The sense widened to the origin of anything and to its first appearance, in a da naștere “to give rise to” and a lua naștere “to come into being”.[4][5] Regionally it names the female genitals, and Creangă uses its plural in curses.[2][5]

Timeline

  • 1551–1553 – a Gospel text, Matthew 19:28, the first record.[5]
  • 1581 – Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.[2][3]
  • 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic рождение (roždenije) with it.[8]
  • 1688 – nașterile “the generations” in the Bucharest Bible, Genesis 6:9.[9][3]
  • 1779 – the variant naștire.[3]
  • 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda gives the senses “giving birth”, “being born” and the female genitals.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. birth: the bringing or coming into the world of a living being; childbirth.[4][1]
  2. Origin, descent: român din naștere “Romanian by birth”.[4]
  3. (figurative) The first appearance or rise of something: a da naștere “to give rise to”, a lua naștere “to arise”.[4][11]
  4. (obsolete) Offspring, a family, a lineage.[2][3]
  5. (regional) The female genitals.[2][5]

Usage notes

Set phrases include zi de naștere “birthday”, act de naștere “birth certificate”, casă de nașteri “a village maternity home” and înainte de nașterea lui Hristos “before Christ”.[4][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 97
  3. ^ 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. naștere
  4. ^ 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. 690
  5. ^ 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. naștere
  6. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 132
  7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 176
  8. ^ 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. naștere
  9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 6:9
  10. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 415
  11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. naștere
Cite this entry

“Naștere.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/na%C8%99tere. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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