rană

Forms

rană f (plural răni)^[1] The old plural is rane, as in the Bucharest Bible of 1688 and in Neculce; a regional plural rănuri also occurs.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic рана (rana, “wound, blow”), from Proto-Slavic *rana.^{[5][6][2][1][3]} The word is common to the Slavic languages: Bulgarian рана (rana), Serbo-Croatian rana and Russian рана (rana).^[5][1][7] Old Church Slavonic used it for a wound and for a blow or a plague, rendering Greek words for both.^[8]

It is found south of the Danube too: Aromanian rană, also aranã, and Megleno-Romanian rănă.^{[5][9][10][11]} Wiktionary takes the Aromanian word from South Slavic.^[1]

Vasmer relates the Slavic word to Sanskrit व्रण (vraṇá, “wound”) and Albanian varrë (“wound”);^[7][1] Wiktionary calls this relation probable.^[7][1] The verb răni “to wound” comes from Old Church Slavonic ранити (raniti) according to Ciorănescu.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where the plural ranele renders the psalmist's “wounds”.^[2][4] Tiktin's first citation is the Psaltirea Scheiană, Psalm 90:10.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the bodily wound the word passed to the scar a wound leaves and, figuratively, to moral suffering, a sense Scriban illustrates with Cantemir's “wounds of enmity”.^[2][12][6] Old texts also used it for a blow, a beating or torture, and figuratively for a spiritual trial.^[2]

Plant names use it for herbs laid on wounds: iarbă de rane for betony and iarba ranei for kidney vetch.^[3] A phrase rana-trânjilor named pellagra.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – ranele in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2][4]
• 1570 – rană in Coresi's psalter, Psalm 90:10.^[13]
• 16th century – the same verse in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3]
• 1648 – the New Testament of 1648 speaks of healing many “of diseases and of wounds”.^[4]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon glosses Old Church Slavonic рана (rana) with it.^[14]
• 1688 – about sixty occurrences in the Bucharest Bible, from Genesis 4:23 on.^[15]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it with Latin vulnus and German Wunde.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wound: a tear inside or on the surface of a living body's tissues, caused by a cut, a blow or an infection; a lesion.^[6][2][1]
2. The scar left after a wound heals.^[2]
3. (figurative) Moral suffering, grief, inner torment: rana despărțirii “the wound of parting”.^[6][17]
4. (obsolete) A blow; in the plural, a beating; torture.^[2]

Word family

• răni
• rănitură

Related words

• Aromanian aranã
• Old Church Slavonic рана (rana)

Usage notes

Common phrases are bun de pus la rană “very kind-hearted”, a pune sare pe rană “to make things worse, to rub salt in the wound” and a pune degetul pe rană “to put one's finger on the real cause of a problem”.^[6][2] DLR and MDA2 list a second rană as a variant of hrană “food”.^[4][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 623
3. ^ 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. rană
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. rană
5. ^ 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. rană
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 911
7. ^ a b c Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
8. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
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, 206
10. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 99
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 245
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1087
13. ^ 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 90:10
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. rană
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 4:23
16. ^ 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. 573
17. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 653