număra

Forms

număra (third-person singular present numără, past participle numărat, third-person subjunctive numere), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin numerō (“to count”), a verb made on numerus (“number”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian numir and Megleno-Romanian numir.^[6][7] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian embruar, Italian noverare, Sardinian numerare, French nombrer, Occitan nombrar and Catalan nombrar.^[8]

The old senses “to name” and “to read” go back instead to Latin nōminō (“to name”), whose regular outcome had the same form; the DLR and MDA2 list them under a homograph.^{[9][3][5][10][1]} The same Latin verb gave Italian nominare, French nommer and Spanish nombrar.^[10] Wiktionary calls the later loan nomina, now obsolete, its doublet.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the first Romanian psalter, the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (early 16th century): „Numărară toate coastele mele” “they counted all my ribs” (Psalm 21:18).^[11][4][3] The sense “to read” appears in the Codicele Voronețean, translating Slavonic “he read”: „Deaci numără ghemonu cartea” “then the governor read the letter” (Acts 23:34).^[5][9]

Semantic evolution

From counting, the verb came to mean reckoning and calculating, counting out money and paying it, and including someone in a group.^[2][4] A text of 1642 complains of rich men who count the money the poor bring them two or three times.^[4] The reflexive “to be among” and the use “to number, amount to” are recorded in the dictionaries.^[2][12][1]

Many phrases use the verb: a număra pe degete “to count on one's fingers”, said of very few things or people, a-i număra cuiva îmbucăturile “to count someone's mouthfuls”, to grudge someone their food, a număra pietrele “to count the stones”, to idle about, and până numeri la trei “before you count to three”, in no time.^[2][3] The senses “to name” and “to read” died out; the DLR marks them as old and regional, and DLRLV records “to read” in the Banat.^[9][13]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – numărară “they counted” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[11][3]
• c. 1563–1583 – numără “read” in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][9]
• 1581 – numără stealele “count the stars” in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[4]
• 1642 – counting money.^[4]
• 1649 – număr glosses the Slavonic verb for counting in Mardarie's lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – numără stealele in the Bucharest Bible.^[15][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) to count: to find how many units there are in a series or group; by extension (popular) to reckon, calculate.^[2][3][1]
2. (transitive) to say the numbers in order: copilul numără de la unu la o sută.^[2][1]
3. (transitive) to hand over something counted; by extension, to pay money.^[2][1]
4. (transitive) to reckon among, include in a group; to comprise a certain number: orașul numără peste o sută de mii de locuitori.^[2][1]
5. (reflexive) to be among, belong to a group: se numără printre cei mai buni elevi.^[2][1]
6. (obsolete) to name, call; to read.^[3][9][1]

Word family

• numărare
• numărat
• numărătoare
• numărător
• nenumărat

Related words

• număr
• numerota
• nume
• Aromanian numir
• Latin numerō

Usage notes

The present is număr, numeri, numără.^[2][1] MDA2 records the regional variant numera.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 724
3. ^ 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, 174
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. număra¹
5. ^ 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. număra
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 788
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 209
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. număra²
10. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
11. ^ 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 21:18
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 434
13. ^ Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 205
14. ^ 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. număr
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 15:5