nimeni

Forms

nimeni (genitive/dative nimănui)^[1] Coresi's Gospel has neminea: „Neminea din farisei nu se scârbise” “none of the Pharisees had been offended”.^[2] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses nimeni, nimenea, nime, nimene, nimea and nimenilea side by side.^[3][4][5][6] Banat and Oltenia say nima; regional genitive-datives include nimărui and nimului.^[7][8]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nēmō (“nobody”), from its accusative nēminem.^{[7][9][10][1][11]} The Latin word is a contraction of an Old Latin phrase meaning no man, from nē (“not”) and the old form of homō (“man”).^[12][1][13]

Candrea and Densusianu note that the regular outcome would have been *nemene, with the /ne-/ kept only in the old genitive-dative nemănui; the change to /ni-/ was very early and came from dissimilation of the first /e/ before the /e/ of the next syllable.^[14] The forms with /r/, such as nimărui, followed cărui.^[14] The short form nime continues the Latin nominative, as in om beside oameni, according to Ciorănescu, or arose from shortening before nu.^[7][14]

The word survives in Megleno-Romanian nimen, with nimea and nimini.^[7] Its Romance cognates are dialectal: dialectal Italian nimo (Pistoia), Sardinian nimus and Corsican nimo.^[7][15][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the genitive-dative: „Nimărui se nu spuri că aceastea vestit-ai mie” “tell no man that you have told me these things” (Acts 23:22).^[9][2][8]

Semantic evolution

The pronoun has meant “no one” from the first texts.^[2] In old Romanian it could stand without a second negation, as in the Psaltirea Scheiană's „Pre zeu tatăl nime nu l-au faptu”, while modern Romanian requires nu with it.^[2][9] The old texts show a great many variants: nimea (c. 1560), nemunuia in Coresi, nimele (1590s), nimenile (1602) and nimerilea (1607).^[2]

Used as a noun it means “a nobody”, a person of no account, and the phrase copil al nimănui “nobody's child” means an orphan.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – nimărui in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[9][2]
• c. 1573–1578 – nime in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[2]
• 1602 – nimenile in a document.^[2]
• 1607 – nimerilea.^[2]
• 1660 – nimea in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[16]
• 1688 – six forms side by side in the Bucharest Bible.^[3]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. nobody, no one; not a single person or being.^[10] Used with nu: Nu a venit nimeni.^[10][9][1]

Noun

1. A person of no worth or standing, a nonentity.^[9]

Word family

• neica-nimeni

Related words

• om
• Latin nēmō

Usage notes

The genitive-dative is nimănui;^[10] nimenea is a variant, and nime and nimene are regional.^[10] Copil al nimănui is an orphan, and a fi ca nimeni de pe lume “to be like no one in the world” is said of someone odd.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. nimeni
3. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 31:44
4. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 31:50
5. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 19:31
6. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. John 8:20
7. ^ a b c d e 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. nimeni
8. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. nímeni
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 155
10. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 716
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5886
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
14. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
15. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 872
16. ^ 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. nimea