rău

Forms

rău m or n (feminine singular rea, masculine plural răi, feminine/neuter plural rele)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin reus (“defendant, accused”), which came to mean “guilty” and then “bad”.^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary sets the sense “bad” in Late Latin.^[1] Pușcariu notes that the step from “guilty” to “bad” is easy and that Romanian shares it with Italian dialects.^[4] Șăineanu put it in moral terms: the culprit became the type of wickedness.^[5] De Vaan defines the Latin word as “party in a lawsuit, defendant” and, with Walde and Hofmann, connects it with rēs (“thing, case”).^[6]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian arãu, Megleno-Romanian rǫu and Istro-Romanian rewu.^[2][7][8] The inherited Romance cognates with the same sense are Dalmatian ri and Italian rio (“wicked”).^[2][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1490.^[10] In Romanian texts the word appears in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where the feminine rea occurs.^[11][3] Coresi's psalter of 1570 already has the masculine rău in dozens of verses.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word covered both a quality (“bad, wicked”) and, used as a noun, “evil”.^[3][10] In the Lord's Prayer of a 1746 Gospel book, „ne izbăvește pre noi de cel rău” means “deliver us from evil”.^[10] MDA2 also records the masculine noun for “evil spirit” and the curse a da tuturor răilor “to give someone to all the devils”.^[3]

The adverb developed the sense “strongly, very”.^[13][1] Pușcariu compared this with Albanian keq (“bad; badly”), which has the same double use.^[4] Ciorănescu adds the noun senses “harm”, “damage” and “illness”.^[2] DEX lists rău de mare “seasickness” and rău de munte “altitude sickness”.^[13]

Timeline

• 1490 – the first record, in a document.^[10]
• early 16th century – rea in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[11][3]
• 1570 – rău throughout Coresi's psalter.^[12]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon uses rău to gloss several Slavonic words.^[14]
• 1688 – răul “evil” in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil of the Bucharest Bible.^[15]
• 1746 – cel rău “evil, the evil one” in the Lord's Prayer.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. bad, having negative qualities; of people, wicked or spiteful: rău de mama focului “thoroughly wicked”, rea-voință “ill will”, rea-credință “bad faith”.^[13][1]
2. Not as it should be, unsuitable; of children, naughty or disobedient.^[13]
3. Of poor quality: worn-out clothes, a drink that tastes bad, money that is out of circulation or counterfeit.^[13]
4. Of craftsmen or artists: unskilful, incompetent.^[13]
5. Harmful or unsatisfactory; of weather, foul; in popular belief, bringing bad luck.^[13]

Adverb

1. badly, wrongly, in the wrong way: a se simți rău “to feel ill”, a-i părea rău “to be sorry”.^[13][1]
2. (colloquial) Strongly; very.^[13][1]

Noun

1. evil, harm, misfortune: cu părere de rău “with regret”, a vorbi de rău “to speak ill of someone”.^[13][1]
2. An illness or discomfort: rău de mare “seasickness”.^[13]
3. (plural) Children's pranks.^[13]

Word family

• răutate
• înrăutăți
• înrăi
• răufăcător
• răuvoitor
• răutăcios

Related words

• Aromanian arãu
• Latin reus

Usage notes

The adjective has the feminine rea and the plurals răi and rele; the noun's plural is rele.^[13][1] MDA2 records an old variant reu.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. rău
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, 648
4. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 129
5. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 537
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 111
8. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 328
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7274
10. ^ 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. rău
11. ^ 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 29:14
12. ^ 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 9:28
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 920
14. ^ 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. rău
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 2:17