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rudă

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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word rudă

rudă1 relative, kinsman

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1551–1553 a Gospel text (Matthew 11:16)
Borrowed from
Bulgarian рода
Ultimate origin
Proto-Slavic *rodъ

Forms

rudă f (plural rude)[1]

Etymology

The word for a relative is borrowed from Bulgarian рода (roda, “kin, family; relative”), according to DEX, MDA2 and NODEX.[2][3][4] Wiktionary takes it from Old Church Slavonic родъ (rodŭ, “birth, kin, people”), from Proto-Slavic *rodъ.[1][5] DER gives both the Slavonic and the Bulgarian forms and relates it to rod, but finds the change of /o/ to /u/ hard to explain.[6] Gabinschi explains it by the Bulgarian pronunciation of the word as /ruˈda/.[7] BER records the Bulgarian word in the senses “origin, family, relative” in several Bulgarian dialects.[8]

Because of the vowel, Tiktin's first edition proposed Slavonic руда (ruda, “ore”) instead;[6][9][10] DER finds that hard to accept for the meaning, and the third edition calls the derivation from the Slavonic word for kin convincing in meaning but difficult in sound.[6][9][10] DER suggests that roadă, whose meaning fits, was crossed with the homograph meaning “pole”, if that word could mean “branch”, an idea close to that of a family.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a Gospel text of 1551–1553, at Matthew 11:16.[10] MDA2 dates it from the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), and Coresi's Psalter of 1570 has it more than twenty times.[3][11] In the old texts it meant a people, a lineage or a generation: a Gospel text of Coresi has „N-are a treace ruda aceasta” “this generation shall not pass” (Matthew 24:35).[10]

Semantic evolution

The old senses were “people, nation”, “origin, descent” and “generation”, with phrases such as de rudă bună “of good birth” and din rudă în rudă “from generation to generation”.[3][10] The 1688 Bible has God tell Abraham to leave his land and his kin: „Ieși den pământul tău și den ruda ta”.[10] The phrase pe rudă, pe sămânță “one and all” goes back, Tiktin notes, to the words „pre rudă și pre sămănătură” “after its kind” of Genesis 1:11 in Dosoftei.[10][12]

The sense “a relative, a member of the family” became the main one;[13][10] Klein glossed it with Latin consanguineus in 1801.[13][10] Șăineanu compared the same development of neam.[14] In popular speech de rudă “for breeding” is said of animals and plants, oi de rudă being ewes kept for lambs.[2][10] A avea rude la Ierusalim means “to have friends in high places”.[2][3]

Timeline

  • 1551–1553 – rudă in a Gospel text, the first record.[10]
  • c. 1563–1583 – the Codicele Voronețean.[3]
  • 1570 – Coresi's Psalter.[11]
  • 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.[15]
  • 1688 – ruda ta “your kindred” in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 12:1).[10]
  • 1801 – rúda “blood relative” in Klein's dictionary.[13]
  • 1825 – rudă “kinship” in the Lexicon de la Buda.[16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A relative: a person of the same family as others, by blood or by marriage; rudenie, rubedenie: E rudă cu mine.[2][3][1]
  2. A family, a lineage; kin.[2][1]
  3. (popular) A breed or strain of animals or plants: berbec de rudă “breeding ram”.[2]
  4. (obsolete) A people or nation; a generation.[3][10]

Word family

  • rudi
  • înrudi
  • rudenie
  • rubedenie

rudă2 pole, rod; cart shaft

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1581–1582 Palia de la Orăștie (Exodus 36:34)
Borrowed from
Hungarian rúd
Ultimate origin
Hungarian rúd

Forms

rudă f (plural rude or ruzi)[3] Regionally the word is also a neuter rud, plural ruduri.[3][12]

Etymology

The word for a pole is borrowed from Hungarian rúd (“pole, shaft”), with Serbo-Croatian ruda (“cart shaft”) as a second source, as DEX, MDA2 and the DLR give it.[2][3][17] DER names only the Serbo-Croatian word, after Miklosich, Tiktin and Rosetti;[6][18] Tiktin compares the Serbo-Croatian and Slovene words and the Hungarian one.[6][18] Scriban also compared Latin rudis (“a stick for gladiators' practice”).[12]

The Hungarian word is recorded from 1327, first in a place name;[19][20][21] TESz calls it of unknown origin, while ÚESz and Zaicz take it, with a doubt about the final /d/, from a Middle High German word for a rod, the ancestor of German Rute.[19][20][21]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581–1582, in the description of the tabernacle, where the boards and the bars are overlaid with gold: „rudele încă le polei cu aur” (Exodus 36:34).[18][17]

Semantic evolution

A pole or bar with many uses: the long pole in peasant houses on which clothes and household things hang, the pole that ties the bucket to a well sweep, the pole laid over a cart to hold the load, a poker for embers, and in the plural the poles for carrying a coffin.[3][17] In Maramureș the rudă is the beam along the longest wall of the house, hung with rows of the bride's woven textiles, and a sign of the household's wealth.[22]

On a cart it is the shaft, and the wheel-horse or wheel-ox is the cal or bou de rudă; it can also be the shafts of a one-horse cart, and a cart for two horses.[3][16] The Lexicon de la Buda also has rudă de săpun “bar of soap” and rudă de ceară roșie “stick of sealing wax”.[16]

Timeline

  • 1581–1582 – rudele “the bars” in the Palia de la Orăștie, the first record.[18][17]
  • 1825 – rudă “pole; cart shaft; bar of soap” in the Lexicon de la Buda.[16]
  • 1825 – the neuter rud in a document.[17]
  • 1865 – “wooden or iron pole” and “bar of soap” in Pisone's dictionary.[23]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (regional) A pole, stake or bar: rude de brad “fir poles”.[2][3]
  2. (regional) A cart shaft; oiște, proțap.[2][24]
  3. (regional) The long pole in a peasant house on which clothes and textiles hang.[3][22]
  • rod
  • roadă

Usage notes

MDA2 and the DLR have a third, obsolete and regional rudă “ore; mine”, recorded in 1836 and taken from Serbo-Croatian ruda.[3][17] Tiktin derives it from Slavonic ruda “ore” and finds it in the place name Rudoiu of 1432.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 965
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 732
  4. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. rudă
  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 c d e f 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. rudă
  7. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 152
  8. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 6, 294
  9. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. rudă 3
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. rudă 1
  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 9:28
  12. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1141
  13. ^ a b c 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
  14. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 555
  15. ^ 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. rudă
  16. ^ a b c d 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. 596
  17. ^ 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. rudă
  18. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. rudă 2
  19. ^ a b Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 461
  20. ^ a b Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
  21. ^ a b Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
  22. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. rudă
  23. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 834
  24. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 782

Related etymologies

  • da · also from Bulgarian
  • lin · also from Bulgarian
  • grijă · also from Bulgarian
  • ciudat · also from Bulgarian
  • ba · also from Bulgarian
  • război · also from Bulgarian
  • grozav · also from Bulgarian
  • păstra · also from Bulgarian
Cite this entry

“Rudă.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/rud%C4%83. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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