piatră

Forms

piatră f (plural pietre)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin petra (“stone, rock”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Latin took it late from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra, “rock”), whose further origin is unknown.^[1][7]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian k'atră and Megleno-Romanian katră.^[2][4][5] The Romance cognates are Italian pietra, Occitan peira, French pierre, Spanish piedra and Portuguese pedra.^[2][6]

The adjective pietros “stony” may continue petrōsus directly, as Pușcariu and Candrea and Densusianu hold;^[8] Aromanian has kitros.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1408, in a Slavonic charter.^[9] In Romanian texts the word appears in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, with the sense “stone”.^[10] MDA2 gives the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583) as its first record.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The core senses are the rock as a material and a piece of it.^[11][3] Worked stone gave piatră de moară “millstone” and piatră scumpă “gem”.^[9] By analogy the word names hard deposits: the scale inside a kettle, tartar on teeth, and a calculus in the body.^[11][2] Hail is piatră too, and in popular speech a meteorite; regionally the word means a weight of a balance.^[11][2]

A scoate apă din piatră (seacă) is to achieve the impossible, a lua cuiva o piatră de pe inimă to relieve someone of a heavy worry, and de piatră “of stone” means unmoved or unfeeling.^[9][11] The proverb Apa trece, pietrele rămân “the water passes, the stones remain” says that hard times pass.^[9]

Ciorănescu lists the derivatives pietrar “stonemason”, pietriș “gravel”, pietroi “boulder”, pietrui “to pave” and împietri “to turn to stone; to astonish”.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1408 – a Slavonic charter, the first record.^[9]
• early 16th century – piatră in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10]
• c. 1563–1583 – the Codicele Voronețean, MDA2's first record.^[3]
• 1570 – piatră in Coresi's psalter.^[12]
• 1688 – piatră throughout the Bucharest Bible.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. stone, rock: the hard material of the earth's crust; a piece of it: un zid de piatră “a stone wall”.^[11][3][1]
2. epoca de piatră: the Stone Age.^[11]
3. A worked piece of stone: a millstone (piatră de moară), a gem (piatră scumpă), a whetstone.^[11][9]
4. A piece used in some board games.^[11]
5. (popular) A meteorite.^[11]
6. (regional) A weight of a scale or balance.^[11]
7. hail.^[11][2]
8. scale: the mineral crust that forms inside a vessel in which water is boiled.^[11]
9. tartar on the teeth.^[11]
10. (medicine) A calculus, a stone in the kidneys or the bladder.^[11][2]

Word family

• pietrar
• pietrean
• pietrărie
• pietriș
• pietroi
• pietroșel
• pietrui
• împietri
• împietroșa

Related words

• Aromanian cheatrã
• Latin petra
• peron
• petrol

Usage notes

The plural is pietre; regional speech also has pietri and pietruri.^[3] As a place name the word is part of Piatra-Neamț, whose inhabitants are called pietreni.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. piatră
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 365
4. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 114
5. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. piatră
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6445
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 611
9. ^ 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. piatră
10. ^ 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 39:3
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 812
12. ^ 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 26:10
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. FACEREA 11:3