prost

Forms

prost m or n (feminine singular proastă, masculine plural proști, feminine/neuter plural proaste)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic простъ (prostŭ, “simple, plain, sincere”), from Proto-Slavic *prostъ (“simple, straight”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The Slavic adjective is a compound of the prefix *pro- and a form of the root of “to stand”, so that its first sense was “standing straight, upright”.^[6] Wiktionary gives it as Proto-Indo-European *pro-sth₂o-, from *steh₂- (“to stand”).^[6][1] Miklosich took “extended, straight” for its first meaning.^[7] The Romanian word kept that old sense in its first records.^[8]

The Aromanian cognate is prostu (“simple, naive”).^[2][9] The Slavic cognates include Bulgarian прост (prost, “simple, stupid”), Serbo-Croatian prost (“simple”) and Russian простой (prostój, “simple”).^[10][2] Ciorănescu compares Hungarian paraszt (“peasant”), which Hungarian borrowed from Slavic.^[2][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 19:11), and the DLR quotes the same manuscript with the adverb prostu “abundantly, generously”: God gives to all men freely, dă tuturor prostu.^[12][8] Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură (1581), MDA2's first record, uses the adverb in the sense “upright”: „Mortul prost șezu și grăi înaintea tuturora” “the dead man sat up and spoke before them all”.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

The 16th- and 17th-century texts use the word in the senses of the Slavonic adjective: “upright”, “sincere, innocent”, and above all “simple, ordinary”.^[8][3] From “simple” came “of low birth, common”: Ureche wrote of people „mai mult proști și necărturari” “mostly simple and unlettered”, and Nicolae Costin's chronicle speaks of a man „de neam prost” “of humble family”.^[12] A soldat prost was a private.^[3][4] Limba proastă meant the vernacular, as against Greek.^[12][13] Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649 uses prost to render Slavonic words for “coarse”, “ignorant” and “layman”.^[14]

Other senses followed from “common”: “of poor quality” (marfă proastă “shoddy goods”) and, finally, “stupid”, now the main sense.^[12][4] Klein's dictionary of 1801 already gives Latin simplex, rudis, rusticus with Hungarian paraszt and együgyű “simple-minded”.^[15] The adverb prost “badly” belongs to the same sense.^[16][1] Gagauz borrowed the word from Romanian, and Transylvanian Saxon formed prostig on it.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – first record, in the Codicele Voronețean.^[12][8]
• 1581 – prost “upright” in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[3][8]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic words for “coarse” and “layman” with it.^[14]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses prost and proști for simple, unlearned people (Acts 4:13).^[17]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda gives the senses “peasant”, “unlearned”, “simple-minded”, “ordinary” and “ugly”.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. stupid, lacking intelligence or judgement, also used as a noun, un prost “a fool”: un prost și jumătate “a complete fool”, a face pe prostul “to play dumb”.^[4][1]
2. naive, easily taken in: a-și găsi prostul “to find someone to fool”.^[4]
3. (dated and popular) Unlearned, unrefined.^[4]
4. Of humble social standing, common: soldat prost “private soldier”.^[4][3]
5. Ordinary, of poor quality, worthless: o carte proastă.^[4][1]
6. Unsatisfactory, not as it should be, unpleasant, bad (news, weather), unskilled at a trade.^[4]
7. Harmful, unfavourable: glumă proastă “a joke in bad taste”.^[4]

Adverb

1. badly, poorly: Am dormit prost azi-noapte.^[1][16]

Word family

• prostac
• prostesc
• prostește
• prosti
• prostie
• prostime
• prosteală
• prostănac

Related words

• Aromanian prostu
• Old Church Slavonic простъ (prostŭ)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. prost
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, 573
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. 887
5. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
6. ^ a b Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
7. ^ Miklosich, Franz (1862–1865), Lexicon palaeoslovenico-graeco-latinum emendatum auctum, Vindobonae: Braumüller
8. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. prost, proastă
9. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 2, 205
10. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
12. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. prost
13. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. prost
14. ^ 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. prost
15. ^ 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. 426
16. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. prost
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Acts 4:13
18. ^ 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. 555