ori

Forms

ori is invariable.^[2] The old language used veri: „De va fi neștine de 30 de ani, veri aibă feciori veri n-aibă, să nu să cuminece 4 ani” “if someone is thirty years old, whether he has sons or not, let him not take communion for four years”.^[3][4] An old ore occurs in a folk text: „Ore dumnita, ore noi” “either Your Lordship or we”.^[3] MDA2 also lists the regional form o.^[5] DEX lists the variant or.^[2] Scriban rejected that spelling as false, saying that nobody pronounces it.^[6] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet it was written орь.^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[2][7] DEX calls it of unknown origin, and so does MDA2.^[2][5] Ciorănescu and Wiktionary treat it as a variant of oare.^[7][1] According to Ciorănescu, following Tiktin and Scriban, that word is inherited from Vulgar Latin *volet (“he wants”), a popular form for classical vult.^[7] Candrea derived the adverb from oară “time”, which Ciorănescu finds harder to explain in meaning.^[7]

Tiktin derives the conjunction itself from the old form veri, the second person singular present of vrea “to want”, and compares Latin vel (“or”) and quīvīs (“anyone you like”), formed the same way.^[3] MDA2 takes the old form from Latin *velis, and Scriban takes the conjunction from *voles, for the classical form meaning “you want”.^[4][6] Ciorănescu gives Aromanian ori as the form of the adverb south of the Danube.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a Coresi print of 1559, and MDA2 cites Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581; both have the disjunctive sense “or”.^[3][5] The 16th-century texts usually have veri for it.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Repeated, ori… ori… means “either… or…” and “whether… or…”.^[3][2] Joined to pronouns and adverbs it forms the indefinites oricine “whoever”, orice “whatever”, oricând “whenever” and oriunde “wherever”; the old language had vericine and similar forms.^[3][7] Ciorănescu notes that ori is now preferred in the alternation ori… ori and in these compounds, while oare keeps the interrogative use.^[7] In popular speech ori can still introduce a question, like oare “I wonder”.^[2][8]

Timeline

• 1559 – the first record, in a Coresi print.^[3]
• 1581 – in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[5]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses őri with Latin sive and German entweder oder.^[9]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda lists it with its compounds ori que, ori quine, ori unde.^[10]

Meanings

Conjunction

1. or; also in questions: Rămâi ori pleci?^[2][5][1]
2. (repeated) either… or…; whether… or…: ori azi, ori mâine.^[2][1]
3. whereas, while, on the other hand.^[1]

Adverb

1. (popular) Introduces a question, like oare: “I wonder”.^[2][8]

Word family

• oricine
• orice
• oricare
• oricând
• oriunde
• oricât
• oricum

Related words

• oare
• vrea

Usage notes

Ori is also the plural of oară “time”: de multe ori “many times”, de trei ori “three times”.^[3][11] Tiktin enters a further ori, a feminine plural meaning “senses, wits”, recorded from 1806 in a-și veni în ori “to come to one's senses” and a scoate din ori “to drive out of one's mind”.^[3] He takes it perhaps to be the same plural of oară and compares Latin hōrae and Albanian orë, a mythological being, after Capidan.^[3] Stati lists a-și veni în ori as a Moldovan regionalism.^[12] MDA2 has a separate or “but, so”, taken from French or.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 751
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. ori
4. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1459
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 225
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 910
7. ^ a b c d e f g 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. oare
8. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 283
9. ^ 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. 410
10. ^ 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. 470
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A. (1916), Psaltirea Scheiană comparată cu celelalte psaltiri din sec. XVI și XVII traduse din slavonește, vol. II: Glosarele, București: Socec, p. 349
12. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 207
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 219