odihnă

Forms

odihnă f (plural odihne)^[1] The popular form hodină appears in Sadoveanu: „nu doresc decît hodină” “I want nothing but rest”.^[2][3] The regional form odină appears in Eminescu: „Somn, a gîndului odină” “sleep, rest of the mind”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Romanian odihni (“to rest”), a noun made from the verb.^{[4][2][3][5][1]} Scriban and Șăineanu derive it from the verb as well.^[6][7]

The verb is a Slavic loan, though the sources name different donors: MDA2 and Wiktionary take it from Bulgarian отдихна (otdihna), and Wiktionary compares Russian отдыхать (otdyxatʹ).^[3][1] Ciorănescu, after Miklosich and Cihac, traces it to a Slavonic verb meaning “to breathe” and compares duhni.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in Coresi's Molitvenic of 1564.^[5] MDA2 dates the noun to the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581,^[3] where it means rest from work: „vădzu odihna că ar fi bună” “he saw that rest was good”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is a break from work or movement: Tiktin quotes Varlaam's Cazania for the heavenly rest of souls and Miron Costin's chronicle for an army's halt: „turcii au șezut pre odihnă” “the Turks rested”.^[5] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use the word to translate the Slavonic word for the sabbath.^[9]

From rest came sleep and peace of mind,^[4] and church language used it for death, odihna de veci or odihna veșnică “eternal rest”, and by extension for the grave.^[4][3] In farming it meant leaving land unworked for a year to make it more fertile.^[3] Regionally it named a halt of a funeral procession on the way to the cemetery, where a gospel was read.^[3] CADE and DEX also record it for a staircase landing.^[10][4]

Timeline

• 1564 – first record, in Coresi's Molitvenic.^[5]
• 1581 – „vădzu odihna” in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[3][2]
• c. 1660–1670 – in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicon Lex.St., which uses it to translate the word for the sabbath.^[9]
• 1688 – 52 occurrences in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses Odihna (Hodina) with Latin quies, requies.^[12]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda gives Latin quies and German Ruhe, Rast.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. rest: a pause in an activity to recover strength; the state or time of repaus: A plecat la munte pentru o săptămână de odihnă.^[4][3]
2. Sleep, and the recovery of strength through sleep.^[4][3]
3. calm, peace of mind; tihnă.^[4]
4. (euphemistic) death, often in odihna de veci or odihna veșnică; by extension the grave.^[4][3]
5. A landing after a flight of stairs; palier.^[4]

Related words

• odihni
• odihneală
• odihnitor

Usage notes

Fără odihnă means “restless” as an adjective phrase and “ceaselessly” as an adverb phrase.^[4] Casă de odihnă is a holiday home in a spa or resort town.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. odihnă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 196
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 735
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. odihnă
6. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 892
7. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 440
8. ^ 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. odihni
9. ^ a b 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. odihnă
10. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. odihnă
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 8:9
12. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 409
13. ^ 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. 460