sat

Forms

sat n (plural sate or (regional) saturi)^[1] The Psaltirea Scheiană writes fsat: „în pădurea sfîntă a ta și în toate fsatele tale” “in your holy forest and in all your villages”.^[2][3] Besides the plural sate, MDA2 records an old plural saturi.^[4]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[5] The Academy dictionaries, DEX and Wiktionary take it from the old form fsat, inherited from Late Latin fossātum (“entrenchment, place enclosed by a ditch”), from fossa (“ditch”).^[6][4][7][1] The Latin word meant “ditch” and also “fort”, a sense the REW holds was already secure in Latin times.^[8] Its cognates include Albanian fshat (“village”) and Byzantine Greek φουσσάτον (phoussáton, “camp, army”), and south of the Danube, Aromanian fsat, a variant of fusate (“trench”).^[5][9][1] Pascu traces that word to the same Latin source, while Papahagi takes it from Italian fossato.^[10][11]

Some take the Romanian word through Albanian: the REW derives it from Albanian fsat and finds a direct Latin source hardly possible for the sounds.^[8][5] G. Meyer derived the Albanian word from a reconstructed Vulgar Latin *massātum, from massa (“estate”), a view Șăineanu followed and Tiktin rejected.^[3][12][13] Çabej rejects both and links the Albanian word with shat (“hoe”), but most scholars prefer the Latin source.^[13]

Ciorănescu finds both the Albanian and the Latin route hard to explain, for the sounds and because a military term fits a land without medieval forts poorly.^[5] He prefers Latin sătum (“something sown”), from serō (“to sow, plant”), which fits the old sense “field”, and he suggests a confusion with the Latin word for “ditch” to account for the old form with ⟨f⟩.^[5] Ungureanu notes that the sense “military camp” of the Latin word appears only after 400 and was typical of Byzantium.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1344, citing Drăganu.^[3] In Romanian texts the word appears in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where satul and satele mean “dwelling, encampment”.^[4][14][7] MDA2 gives “tent” and “dwelling” as its oldest senses.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th-century translations the word renders Old Church Slavonic село (selo) in the sense “field” and a Slavonic word for “dwelling”.^[3] Coresi's Gospels use it for the potter's field: „Sfat făcură să cumpere lor un sat” “they took counsel to buy themselves a field” (Matthew 27:7).^[3] Ciorănescu also gives the old sense “estate, farm”.^[5]

The sense “village” is in documents from the 16th century on: a deed of 1591 sells land „din vatra satului și din cîmpu” “from the village hearth and the field”.^[7] The word came to mean the villagers as well, and the peasantry with its way of life.^[6] Expressions include satul lui Cremene or sat fără câini “a place without a master, where anyone does as he pleases” and a face sat cu cineva “to stay long with someone”.^[6][4][15] Modern compounds include sat de vacanță “holiday village” and sat olimpic “Olympic village”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1344 – the first record, cited by Tiktin from Drăganu.^[3]
• early 16th century – satul, satele in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[14][4]
• c. 1573–1578 – fsatele in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[2][3]
• 1591 – vatra satului “the village hearth” in a deed of sale.^[7]
• 1648 – the New Testament of Bălgrad: Jesus went about „preîn toate orașăle și satele” “through all the towns and villages”.^[7]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic words for “village” and “field” with sat.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A village: a rural settlement whose people live mostly from agriculture.^[6][1]
2. The villagers of a village as a whole.^[6][17]
3. The peasantry, with its own economic and cultural way of life.^[6]
4. (obsolete) A field.^[5][4][1]
5. (obsolete) A dwelling or tent.^[4][1]

Word family

• sătesc
• sătean
• săteancă
• consătean
• sătișor
• sătuc

Related words

• Albanian fshat

Usage notes

A se supăra ca văcarul pe sat “to be angry like the cowherd with the village” is said of someone who takes offence for no reason, to his own loss.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 356
3. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sat
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 760
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. sat
6. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 976
7. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sat
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3461
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 474
10. ^ 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, 90
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 482
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 568
13. ^ a b Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
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 51:5
15. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1156
16. ^ 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. sat
17. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. sat