noapte

Forms

noapte f (plural nopți)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nox (“night”), continuing the accusative ⟨noctem⟩.^[2][3][1][4] The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts (“night”).^[1][5]

The word survives in all four branches of Romanian: Aromanian noapte, Megleno-Romanian noapti and Istro-Romanian nopte.^{[2][6][7][8][9]} Its Romance cognates include Italian notte, French nuit, Catalan nit, Spanish noche and Portuguese noite.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century has noapte and noaptea in many psalms, starting with Psalm 1:2.^[10] MDA2's first record is the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583): „Alu treile ceasu de noapte” “at the third hour of the night” (Acts 23:23).^[3][11][12]

Semantic evolution

Beside the time between sunset and sunrise, the articled form noaptea is an adverb, “at night”, in Romanian as in Aromanian.^[13][14] The compound miazănoapte, literally “middle of the night”, means “north”;^[12][14] Aromanian has the matching phrase for “midnight”.^[12][14] Cu noaptea-n cap “with the night still on one's head” means “before dawn, very early”, and Aromanian has the same phrase.^[15][6] Noapte bună! is said when going to bed or leaving in the evening.^[3]

The verb înnopta “to fall dark; to spend the night” matches compounds of the Latin noun in Italian, French and Spanish.^[2][4] Plant names are nopticoasă (dame's violet) and noptiță (four-o'clock flower).^[2] Nopturn was Odobescu's coinage, and the neologism nocturn came from French.^[2]

Timeline

• early 16th century – noapte in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10]
• c. 1551–1558 – noapte in the Voroneț psalter.^[16]
• c. 1563–1583 – „ceasu de noapte” in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][11]
• 1570 – noapte and noaptea in Coresi's psalter.^[17]
• 1581 – „Veni-va noaptea când nimea nu poate lucra” “the night comes when no one can work” in Coresi's homilies.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. night: the time between sunset and sunrise, when it is dark.^[13][3][1]
2. Noapte bună! “good night”, a wish before going to sleep or a farewell in the evening.^[3]

Adverb

1. (in the form noaptea) At night, during the nighttime.^[13]

Word family

• noptatic
• nopticoasă
• noptiță
• noptos
• înnopta
• miazănoapte

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. noapte
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, 160
4. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5973
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 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. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
9. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 129
10. ^ 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 1:2
11. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. noapte
12. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. noapte
13. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 718
14. ^ a b c Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 127
15. ^ DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 141
16. ^ 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 101:7
17. ^ 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 15:7