orb

Forms

orb m or n (feminine singular oarbă, masculine plural orbi, feminine/neuter plural oarbe)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin orbus (“bereaved, deprived”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][1]} In classical Latin the word meant “bereaved of parents or children, deprived of”; the sense “blind” appears in later Latin, from phrases like orbus luminibus (“deprived of light”).^[8][9] The Latin adjective comes from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos (“orphan”), the source also of Ancient Greek ὀρφανός (orphanós, “orphaned”).^[1][10]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian orbu, Megleno-Romanian uorb and Istro-Romanian orb.^{[11][12][13][14]} The Romance languages that kept the Latin word in the sense “blind” include Dalmatian vuarb, Italian orbo, Old French orb, Occitan orp and Catalan orb.^[2][7] Albanian verbër was borrowed from the same Latin word.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1491, a record in the Slavonic–Romanian documents.^[5] In Romanian texts it appears in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century: „Domnul mijeaște orbii” “the Lord opens the eyes of the blind”.^[3][15][16]

Semantic evolution

From the sense “blind” come figurative uses: blind with passion, acting without discernment (iubire oarbă “blind love”, noroc orb “blind luck”), and “dark, without light” (noapte oarbă).^[4][17][5] In architecture and the crafts it means “without an opening”: zid orb “blind wall”, fereastră oarbă “blind window”, and cartuș orb “blank cartridge”.^[4][5] In Banat and Transylvania it can mean “one-eyed”.^[2]

Proverbs and phrases are many: în țara orbilor, chiorul e împărat “in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king”, a se ține ca orbul de gard “to cling to an idea stubbornly”.^[5][3] Derivatives include the verb orbi “to go blind, to blind”, the adverb orbește “blindly”, and orbecăi “to grope”, which Ciorănescu forms with an expressive suffix, while Pușcariu and Candrea–Densusianu derive it from Latin *orbicare.^[2]

Timeline

• 1491 – a record in the Slavonic–Romanian documents, the first.^[5]
• early 16th century – orbii “the blind” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[3][16]
• 1649 – orb in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[18]
• 1688 – orb, orbi, orbii in the Bucharest Bible.^[19]
• c. 1801 – orbul găinilor “night blindness” in Klein's dictionary.^[3][20]

Meanings

Adjective

1. blind: without sight; also as a noun, a blind person.^[4][1]
2. (figurative) That admits no other view: încredere oarbă “blind trust”.^[4]
3. (figurative) Acting without discernment or purpose, at random: soarta oarbă “blind fate”; complete, total; lacking insight.^[4]
4. (figurative) Without light, dark.^[4]
5. In set phrases, without an opening or without its normal function: fereastră oarbă “blind window”, cartuș orb “blank cartridge”, puț orb “blind shaft”.^[4]

Word family

• orbecăi
• orbește
• orbeț
• orbie
• orbiș
• orbitor
• orbi

Related words

• Aromanian orbu
• Latin orbus

Usage notes

DEX has a separate neuter noun orb¹, used only in orbul găinilor (or găinii) “night blindness”, literally “the hens' blindness”, a back-formation from the verb orbi.^[4][20] A avea orbul găinilor means “not to see something right under one's nose”.^[4][3] MDA2 first records it in Klein's dictionary.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. orb
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 220
4. ^ 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. 748
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. orb
6. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 107
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6086
8. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. orb
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. orvet
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 808
12. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 316
13. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 294
14. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula, p. s.v. orb
15. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. orb 2
16. ^ 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 145:6
17. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 907
18. ^ 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. orb
19. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. De la Matthei 15:14
20. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. orb 1