săcret

Forms

săcret m or n (feminine singular săcreată, masculine plural săcreți, feminine/neuter plural săcrete)^[1] The dictionaries record the word also as secret, sicret and sâcret, as in a Bukovinian lament: „Mare-i casa și sâcreată, De tine rămasă stearpă” “the house is large and desolate, left barren by you”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sēcrētus (“set apart, solitary”), the participle of sēcernō (“to separate”).^[4][5][6][7] Pușcariu and the REW explain the Romanian senses “deserted, cursed” from the Latin sense “solitary”, and Gabinschi takes it as inherited with the sense “deserted, empty of people”.^[8][9][10] Tiktin calls it perhaps an inherited word and suggests that Austrian German sakret, from Italian sagrato (“damned”), may have influenced the sense “cursed”.^[3] Ciorănescu derives that sense from the idea of emptiness, as in pustiu, and suggests it may have been felt as part of the series proclet, treclet.^[4]

The same Latin word gave Albanian shkretë (“deserted, solitary”), with a similar change of meaning.^[4][8][1] Wiktionary and Cunia take Aromanian shcret from it, while Pascu derives it straight from Latin.^[1][11] The neologism secret “secret” is a separate borrowing from French secret and Latin.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 gives the first record from the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, a Romanian–Latin glossary of c. 1650–1700, for the sense “deserted” of places.^[5][6] Tiktin dates his first record of the word to 1698.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From “deserted, uninhabited” the adjective came to mean “untrodden” of forests and roads, and then “cursed, wretched”.^[5][6] As a noun it named an abandoned place thought to be haunted by evil spirits, and in curses, usually with the article, the devil himself: du-te la săcretu! “go to the devil!”.^[5][12][6] Ciorănescu notes that the word is popular only in Transylvania.^[4] In Maramureș it is recorded for a deserted place and above all in curses such as lasă-l în săcreată!.^[13][14] Tiktin glosses that curse “let him go!”.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1650–1700 – “deserted” in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[5]
• 1698 – Tiktin's first record.^[3]
• 1929 – Șăineanu lists it as a Moldavian word, “dangerous; devilish”, with săcretul “the devil”.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (regional, Transylvania) Of places or houses: deserted, uninhabited.^[2][5][1]
2. (regional) Of forests or roads: untrodden, remote.^[5][1]
3. (popular) cursed, damned.^[2][5][1]

Noun

1. (regional) A deserted place thought to be haunted by evil spirits.^[5][13][1]
2. (popular, usually with the article, in curses) The devil.^[5][6]

Related words

• secret
• pustiu
• Albanian shkretë
• Aromanian shcret
• Latin sēcrētus

Usage notes

The DLR and MDA2 treat the word under secret³, the inherited homograph of the neologism secret.^[6][5] The feminine is săcreată.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 19
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. secret
4. ^ 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. secret
5. ^ 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, 841
6. ^ 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. secret³
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 143
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7765
10. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 156
11. ^ 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, 166
12. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 558
13. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. săcret
14. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. săcrét