scriptură

Forms

scriptură f (plural scripturi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin scrīptūra (“writing”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Aromanian scriptură is the same word.^[2][6] Its Romance cognates include Italian scrittura, French écriture, Occitan escritura, Catalan escriptura, Spanish escritura and Portuguese escritura.^[2][6] It belongs with scrie “to write”.^[2] scriitură is a later doublet.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the Acts of the Apostles (28:21), where it means a written message.^[3][7] In the old language it was used of anything written.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word covers writing in general: letters and characters (Coresi has a text written „cu scripturi elinești și rimlenești” “in Greek and Latin letters”), an inscription, a note, a letter, a document, a written work and its contents.^[5][3][7] Dosoftei tells of a coffin with inscriptions „într-altă limbă” “in another language”.^[7] Eminescu still wrote of „scripturele române”, the Romanian writings.^[7] It also meant a person's handwriting, in Sion, Caragiale and the legal texts.^[5]

The church sense, the holy writings, often in the plural or as Sfânta Scriptură, is now the current one; the others are obsolete.^[3][4]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – scriptură “written message” in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[3][7]
• 1649 – scriptură glossing Slavonic епитафион “epitaph” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[8]
• 1688 – scriptură “inscription” and scripturi “scriptures” in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The Scripture, the holy writings of the Old and New Testaments; the Bible.^[4][1]
2. (obsolete) A literary or scholarly work.^[4]
3. (obsolete) A note, a written record or account; a text.^[4][3]
4. (obsolete) handwriting.^[4][5]

Related words

• scrie
• scrisoare
• scriitură
• Latin scrīptūra

Usage notes

In the religious sense the word is often used in the plural, Scripturile, or in the phrase sfânta scriptură “Holy Scripture”, in the old language also scriptura sfântă.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. scriptură
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 826
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 994
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. scriptură
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7746
7. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. scriptură
8. ^ 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. scriptură
9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Lc 20:24