nimic

Forms

nimic^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *nemīca (“nothing”), formed of ne- (“not”) and Latin mīca (“grain, crumb”).^{[2][3][1][4][5]} Its Romance cognates include Venetian nemiga, Old French nemie and Italian mica.^[2][1][4] Ciorănescu compares Romanian mică.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century has the old form nemică (Psalm 22:1), and Coresi's Psalter of 1570 nemica.^[6][7] MDA2's first record is the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583).^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

In the old language it kept the original adverbial sense “not at all, in no way”: Grigore Ureche writes nemica de arme nu s-au apucat, ce de fugă “they did not take up arms at all, but fled”, and Dosoftei n-au mai rămas nemică verdeață “no green at all was left”.^[2] As a pronoun it came to mean “nothing”, and as a noun, with the plural nimicuri, “a trifle”, and figuratively “nothingness, the void”.^[9][3][4]

Romanian derived the verb nimici “to destroy, annihilate”, nimicitor “destructive” and nimicnicie “vanity, worthlessness”.^[2]

Timeline

• early 16th century – nemică in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[6]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean, MDA2's first record.^[3]
• 1570 – nemica in Coresi's Psalter.^[7]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. nothing, not a thing; also not a word, not a sound, nothing bad: de nimic “worthless”;^[9][3] pe nimic “for next to nothing”.^[9][3]

Adverb

1. (dated and popular) Not at all, in no way: a nu avea nimic a face “to have nothing to do with”.^[9]

Noun

1. A trifle: a thing, deed or word of no value, often in the plural nimicuri;^[9] o nimica toată “a mere nothing”.^[9]
2. (figurative) nothingness, non-being; chaos.^[9][3]

Word family

• nimici
• nimicitor
• nimicnicie

Related words

• mică

Usage notes

Variants are nimica, and in popular speech nimică, nemica and nemică.^[9][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. nimic
3. ^ 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, 156
4. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5885
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. ^ a b 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 22:1
7. ^ a b 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 38:7
8. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. nimic
9. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 716