sâmbătă

Forms

sâmbătă f (plural sâmbete)^[1]

Etymology

Ciorănescu takes it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *sambatum (“Saturday”), the form with /m/ of Latin sabbatum.^[2][3][1] Wiktionary gives the feminine *sambata as the immediate source.^[1] The same nasal form lies behind French samedi, German Samstag and Romansh samda of the Engadine.^[2][3] Pascu derives Aromanian Sãmbãtã from the same Latin form.^[4] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek σάββατον (sábbaton, “Sabbath”), from Biblical Hebrew שַׁבָּת (šabbāṯ, “Sabbath”).^[1] Ciorănescu adds that Greek forms with /mb/, such as Byzantine Greek σάμβατον (sámbaton), could also explain the Romanian word.^[2][5]

MDA2 and DEX 2009 derive the word instead from Old Church Slavonic сѫбота (sǫbota, “Saturday”), a borrowing.^[6][7] Miklosich, Cihac and Byhan held this view too, and NODEX gives both the Latin and the Slavonic source.^[2][8] Ciorănescu finds the Slavonic origin unlikely except for the old variant sâmbotă: the Slavonic word is itself of unclear origin, perhaps from Latin, and no other Slavic name of a day of the week shows Latin influence.^[2] Vasmer derives the Slavic forms in /sǫ-/ from a Medieval Greek form with /mb/.^[9] Wiktionary traces Proto-Slavic *sǫbota to Latin.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583).^[6] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses the word and its plural sâmbete often.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Besides the day, the old language used the word for the week.^[2][6][11] Scriban explains the feminine gender by the Latin plural or by analogy with the names of the other days.^[11]

Folk belief made Saturday an ill-omened day: the woman who personifies it is an evil fairy, never called “saint” as Wednesday, Friday and Sunday are.^[2] The idiom a purta cuiva sâmbetele first meant to give alms every Saturday for forty days after someone's death; it came to mean to wish someone ill, and then to hate him.^[6] Apa Sâmbetei is the water believed to flow under the earth to the world of the dead, so that a se duce pe apa Sâmbetei means “to be lost, to go to ruin”.^[6][11] A-i lipsi cuiva o sâmbătă “to be missing a Saturday” means to be not quite sane.^[2][6]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – sâmbătă in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[6]
• 1688 – sâmbătă, sâmbete and sâmbetei in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Saturday: the sixth day of the week, after Friday.^[7][6][1]
2. Sâmbăta Mare or Sâmbăta Paștilor: Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday.^[7][6]
3. Sâmbăta morților or sâmbăta moșilor: any of the Saturdays of the year on which services and alms are offered for the dead.^[7][6]
4. (folklore) The woman who personifies Saturday.^[2]
5. (obsolete) A week.^[6][2]

Adverb

1. On the coming or the last Saturday.^[7][6]
2. (usually as sâmbăta) On a Saturday; every Saturday.^[7][6]

Word family

• sâmbătaș

Related words

• sabat
• Aromanian Sãmbãtã

Usage notes

The plural is sâmbete.^[7][6] Common idioms are a purta cuiva sâmbetele “to bear someone a grudge” and a se duce pe apa sâmbetei “to go to ruin”.^[7]

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 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. sîmbătă
3. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7479
4. ^ 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. 1, 157
5. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
6. ^ 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, 782
7. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 982
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. sâmbătă
9. ^ Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
10. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Exodus 16:23
11. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1207