seară

Forms

seară f (plural seri)^[1] The popular and Moldavian variant sară is frequent in old texts, as in Dosoftei's lives of the saints: „Și era amu sară” “and it was now evening”.^[2][3][4] Besides the plural seri, a regional plural sere occurs.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin sēra (“evening”), a Late Latin noun shortened from the phrase sēra diēs (“late day”), with the feminine of Latin sērus (“late”).^[3][4][1][5] The adjective goes back to Proto-Indo-European *seh₁-ro- (“long-lasting; late”).^[6]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian searã, Megleno-Romanian sĕră and Istro-Romanian sere.^[3][7][8] Romanian shares the noun with Italian sera and Dalmatian saira; French soir, Occitan ser and Sardinian sero continue instead the adverb sērō (“late”).^[9][10][1] Nocentini notes that the sense “evening” is never the first one in this family: it grew out of “a day that drags on”, as in Spanish tarde.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form sară in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, in Psalm 58.^[11] The Psaltirea Scheiană and Coresi's psalter of 1570 have seară in the same verse.^[11][12][4]

Semantic evolution

The word names the end of the day, when the sun sets and it grows dark, and the first hours of the night.^[13][4] Used adverbially, seara means “in the evening, every evening”.^[13] A sense “a gathering held in the evening”, as in seară de dans, is recorded by MDA2.^[4]

Adverbs of time were formed on it: aseară “last night”, with an a- that Jarnik derived from Latin ad and Iordan from illa;^[10] deseară “this evening”; and the old astară “tonight”.^[3][10] The meaning “yesterday evening” of aseară has parallels in Vegliote, Istro-Romanian and dialects of southern and northern Italy.^[10] The verb însera “to grow dark” has an Old French parallel, anserir.^[3] Serată “evening party” is a later loan from Italian, not a Romanian derivative.^[3]

Timeline

• early 16th century – sară in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[11]
• 1570 – seară in Coresi's psalter.^[11]
• 1574 – seara fiind “it being evening” in a Tetraevangelion.^[2]
• 1688 – sară over a hundred times in the Bucharest Bible, from Genesis 1:5 on.^[14]
• 1825 – seară, glossed Latin vesper, in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. evening: the end of the day, when it begins to grow dark, until one goes to bed.^[13][1]
2. An evening given to some activity: o seară de dans “a dance evening”.^[4]

Word family

• aseară
• deseară
• astară
• însera

Related words

• Aromanian searã
• Latin sērus

Usage notes

Bună seara! “good evening” is used both on meeting and on parting in the evening;^[13][4] a-și lua bună seara means “to take one's leave in the evening”.^[13][4] De cu seară means “since the evening before” or “as soon as evening falls”, and spre seară “towards evening”.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. seară
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. seară
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, 837
5. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. sera
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 917
8. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 149
9. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. sera
10. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7841
11. ^ a b c d 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 58:7
12. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. seară
13. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 997
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 1:5
15. ^ 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. 633