sarcină

Forms

sarcină f (plural sarcini)^[1] The Bible of 1688 has the old form sarcenă (Isaiah 46:1).^[2][3] MDA2 also lists the regional variants sacrină and salcină and an old popular plural sarcine.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sarcina (“pack, bundle, burden”).^{[5][4][6][2][1]} The Latin noun is related to sarciō (“to patch, mend”)^[1] and is traced to Proto-Indo-European *serḱ-.^[1]

The word survives south of the Danube and in Istria: Aromanian sarțină and Istro-Romanian sǫrcirę.^[5][7][8] Among the Romance languages only southern Italy kept it: Old Italian sarcina and the Apulian and Neapolitan words for a bundle of brushwood.^[9][5] Romanian formed the verb însărcina on it, which also means “to make pregnant”.^[9][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from the Codicele Voronețean, in Acts 21:3, with the sense “load, burden”.^[2] MDA2 gives the Bible of 1688 as its first record.^[4] The Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the 17th century, from Mardarie's of 1649 on, gloss Slavonic бремѧ “burden” with it.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is a load carried by a person or an animal, and a bundle of wood, hay or straw that can be carried on the back.^[6][2] An old sense was a measure of weight or volume for firewood;^[4][3] Scriban gives a measure of 125 oca.^[4][3] From the load came the figurative senses: a burden, a tax or due owed to the state, a charge on a property, then a duty, task or responsibility, and a mission or office.^[2][6][3] Phrases such as a pune ceva în sarcina cuiva “to make someone answerable for something” belong here.^[6]

The sense “pregnancy” is recorded by the dictionaries of the late 19th century, as in Barcianu's of 1886, and Tiktin quotes it from Vlahuță.^[11][2] The word also became a term of physics and engineering: a mechanical load, the power delivered by a system, and sarcină electrică “electric charge”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1563-1583 – the first record, in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, for бремѧ “burden”.^[10]
• 1688 – sarcină and the old form sarcenă in the Bucharest Bible.^[4][2]
• 1825 – sarcină “burden, bundle, pack” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[12]
• 1886 – the sense “pregnancy” in Barcianu's dictionary.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A load or burden carried by a person or an animal; also, figuratively, a weight on someone.^[6][1]
2. A bundle of wood, hay or straw that can be carried on the back or in the arms: o sarcină de lemne.^[6][2]
3. A duty, obligation or responsibility, material or moral: a pune ceva în sarcina cuiva “to hold someone responsible for something”.^[6][13]
4. A mission; also an office or role.^[6]
5. pregnancy: the state of a pregnant woman and the time it lasts.^[6][1]
6. (physics, engineering) A load acting on a body or system; the power given or taken by a technical system;^[6] sarcină electrică “electric charge”.^[6]

Word family

• însărcina
• însărcinare
• însărcinat

Related words

• povară
• Aromanian sarțină
• Latin sarcina

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. sarcină
3. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1155
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 758
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. sarcină
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 976
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 916
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 888
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7598
10. ^ 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, p. s.v. sarcină
11. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 562
12. ^ 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. 609
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. sarcină