rob

Forms

rob m (plural robi, feminine equivalent roabă)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic робъ (robŭ, “slave, servant”), a loan from the Slavonic of the church and chancery.^[2][3][1] Ciorănescu cites the Slavonic word in its other form, рабъ (rabŭ), after Miklosich and Cihac;^[4] Old Church Slavonic has both forms, the one with ⟨o⟩ being the rarer, found in the Zographensis and the Suprasliensis.^[4][5][6] The Slavonic word goes back to Proto-Slavic *orbъ (“servant, slave”).^[5][1] Wiktionary takes this further to Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos (“orphan”), which makes the Romanian word a doublet of orb, the word inherited from Latin orbus.^[1]

The word also lives south of the Danube: Aromanian rob, with the feminine roabã, which Papahagi too takes from Slavonic.^[7][8][9] Ciorănescu compares Serbo-Croatian rob and Hungarian rab, and the word is Bulgarian роб (rob, “slave”).^[4][10] The Hungarian word is itself a loan from South Slavic, probably Serbo-Croatian, made during the Ottoman period.^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to before 1560, in a text printed in Gaster's chrestomathy, and Tiktin also gives 1560.^[13][3] The 16th-century records already show both senses, “slave” and “servant”: Coresi's Gospel book has the feminine in Peter's denial, „Văzu-l ei o roabă” “a maid saw him”, for the Slavonic rabynji.^[3] The psalter of 1589 has robul “thy servant” in Psalm 18.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The first senses were a captive taken in war and a slave.^[4][3] Ureche's chronicle says of the prisoners of a lost battle that great men were among those made robi, and the Bible of 1688 reminds the Israelites „că rob ai fost în pământul Eghipetului” “that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt”.^[3] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss it with Slavonic words for “captive” and “slave”, and the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 still gives three senses: slave, captive and servant.^[15][16] In the Romanian lands the word named a person wholly dependent on a master, who had no right to kill him.^[2]

From the slave came the humble servant: Eustratie calls himself the prince's rob in the preface to his law book of 1646, and robul lui Dumnezeu, roaba lui Dumnezeu “the servant, the handmaid of God” became fixed in church language.^[3][13] Figurative senses followed: a person devoted to someone, or ruled by a passion, as in Eminescu's line about a mind that is the roabă of a spell.^[3][2] Colloquially it also meant a prisoner, and in Bihor a thief.^[13][4] Calea robilor or drumul robilor “the road of the slaves” is a folk name of the Milky Way, and de-a robii a children's game;^[13][17] Bulgarian dialects also use the word for a children's game.^[13][17][10]

Timeline

• before 1560 – the first record, in a text printed in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[13][3]
• 1589 – robul “thy servant” in Coresi's psalter.^[14]
• 1646 – Eustratie calls himself the prince's rob “servant” in a law book.^[3]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1688 – rob and its forms over four hundred times in the Bucharest Bible.^[18]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses it with Latin words for “slave”, “captive” and “servant”.^[19]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda gives the senses slave, captive and servant.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A slave, a serf: in the Middle Ages in the Romanian lands, a person wholly dependent on a master.^[2][13]
2. A person who works very hard.^[2]
3. A captive, a prisoner of war put to hard labour;^[2][13] (popular) a prisoner, a convict.^[2][13]
4. (figurative) A person wholly devoted or submissive to someone.^[2][13]
5. (religion) A servant of God, a believer: robul lui Dumnezeu.^[2][13]
6. A person held in social or political subjection.^[2][13]
7. (figurative) A person ruled by a passion, a concern or an obligation: Era rob al muncii sale.^[2][13]

Word family

• roabă
• robaci
• robi
• robime
• roboti
• robotă
• robie
• dezrobi

Related words

• orb
• Aromanian rob

Usage notes

Calea robilor or drumul robilor is a folk name of the Milky Way.^[13][20]

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 k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 958
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. rob
4. ^ a b c d e 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. rob
5. ^ a b Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 373
6. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 908
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 880
10. ^ a b Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 6, 274
11. ^ Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 323
12. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu, p. s.v. rab
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 717
14. ^ 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 18:12
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b 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. 591
17. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1132
18. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition)
19. ^ 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. 433
20. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. rob