nuntă

Forms

nuntă f (plural nunți)^[1] The old plural was nunte, which MDA2 marks as old and popular.^[2][3] Regional variants are numtă and nunță.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nuptiae (“wedding”), a plural noun formed on nupta (“bride”), the participle of nūbō (“to marry”).^[4][5][1][6] The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian numtã (also lumtã), Megleno-Romanian nuntă and Istro-Romanian nuntę.^[4][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian nozze, Sardinian nuntas, Occitan nossas and French noces.^[4][9]

Ciorănescu notes that the sounds are not regular, and several explanations have been offered.^[4] Densusianu supposed a crossing with nūntiō (“to announce”), and the REW also takes the ⟨n⟩ from that verb.^[4][9] Pușcariu, Byck and Graur start from a plural ⟨*nupți⟩, which became ⟨nunți⟩.^[4] DEX, MDA2 and Șăineanu likewise treat the singular as remade from the plural ⟨nunți⟩.^[5][2][10] Cipariu, Pascu, Philippide and Scriban start from ⟨nupta⟩ instead.^[4] Scriban gives the steps ⟨*numptă⟩ and ⟨nuntă⟩.^[11] Tiktin also prefers ⟨nūpta⟩, comparing Sardinian ⟨nuntas⟩ from ⟨nuptas⟩.^[3] He objects to the plural theory because the old plural was ⟨nunte⟩.^[3] Ciorănescu concludes that a nasal form ⟨*nunptiae⟩ must be assumed in any case, either from the crossing with ⟨nuntiāre⟩ or by the spread of the nasal.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1551–1553, a Gospel text with the parable of the wedding feast (Matthew 22:9).^[3] MDA2 has its first record in Coresi's book of sermons of 1581.^[2] In old texts the word means both the wedding and the marriage itself.^[3] An old law code says that a marriage is dissolved when one partner becomes a monk: „Desparte-se nunta când se face neștine călugăr”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The sense "marriage" faded, and the word now names the wedding ceremony and the feast.^[3][5] It also names the wedding party itself, the guests and their procession, and by a figure any noisy crowd.^[5][12] In one regional custom a mock wedding is acted out at Christmas.^[5] In a glossary of Muntenia it means a village dance or party.^[13]

The mating of animals is nunta oilor "the wedding of the sheep", and biologists speak of a haină de nuntă "wedding dress" for the breeding colours of fish and birds.^[3][2] In popular belief nunta urzicilor "the wedding of the nettles" is the flowering of nettles on Maundy Thursday, after which they are no longer eaten.^[3] Romanian lent the word to Hungarian, where nunta was recorded by Edelspacher.^[4]

Timeline

• 1551–1553 – nuntă in a Gospel text (Matthew 22:9), the first record.^[3]
• 1581 – in Coresi's book of sermons.^[2]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon gives nuntă for Slavonic бракъ.^[14]
• 1688 – twenty times in the Bucharest Bible, among them the wedding parable.^[15]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda glosses it with Latin nuptiae and German Hochzeit.^[16]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary defines it as both the marriage and the festivities.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wedding: a church marriage and the ceremony and feast held for it.^[5][2][1]
2. (figurative) A racket, an uproar.^[5][2]
3. The wedding party: the guests and their procession.^[5][18]
4. (regional) A Christmas custom in which a wedding is acted out.^[5]
5. The mating of animals, and its season.^[2]

Word family

• nuntaș
• nunti
• nuntit

Related words

• Aromanian numtã
• Latin nuptiae

Usage notes

Nuntă de argint and nuntă de aur are the 25th and 50th anniversaries of a marriage.^[5][2] A face nuntă means “to hold a wedding, to get married”.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 177
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. núntă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. nuntă
5. ^ 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. 725
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 789
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 209
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5999
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 435
11. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 880
12. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 232
13. ^ Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. 287
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. nuntă
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mt 22:2
16. ^ 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. 452
17. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 185
18. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. nuntă