secera

Forms

secera (first-person singular present secer, third-person singular present seceră, past participle secerat, third-person subjunctive secere) 1st conjugation^[1][2] Coresi's Gospel book (1561) spells it seaceră: „nu seamănă, nece seaceră, nece adună în jitnițe” “they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns” (Matthew 6:26).^[3] Older and regional texts also have săcera: „cine va săcera plată va lua” “he that reapeth shall receive wages” (Varlaam).^[3][4]

Etymology

The Academy dictionaries take the verb from Latin: it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *sicilō (“to reap with a sickle”), a verb formed on sicilis (“sickle”).^{[4][2][3][5][1]} Tiktin compares Friulian sezelâ and Venetian sezolar, and the REW adds Dalmatian seklur.^[5][6] The Aromanian long infinitive sitsirari survives as a noun, “harvest”.^[6][7][1]

Ciorănescu instead lists the verb among the derivatives of the noun seceră, a view Șăineanu had held.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the first Romanian psalter, the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century: „Sămănătoriul sămănând cu lacrămi, cu bucurie seceră” “the sower who sows in tears reaps with joy” (Psalm 125:5).^[4][3][5] The sense is the literal one, cutting grain at harvest.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From cutting grain the verb widened to “to harvest” in general, and the Gospel saying about reaping where one has not sown became proverbial, as did cum vei semăna, așa vei secera “as you sow, so shall you reap”.^[5][9] It also took on a figurative sense, “to mow down”: death, war or an epidemic seceră people.^[5][2][10] Ciorănescu also records “to fire with an automatic weapon”.^[8] Rarer senses are “to wound deeply with a blade” and, reflexive, “to die”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – seceră in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 125:5).^[4][3]
• c. 1563-1583 – au secerat “have reaped” in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3]
• 1581 – secera in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[3]
• c. 1660 – secerat in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – the verb in more than thirty passages of the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1692 – „ne dusăm să săcerăm” “we went to reap” in a document.^[3]
• 1862 – Pontbriant glosses it French moissonner and faucher.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To reap: to cut grain at the base of the stalk, by hand with a sickle or with a machine.^[2][4][1]
2. (transitive, rare) To harvest crops in general.^[4][5]
3. (transitive, figurative) To kill people or animals suddenly and in great numbers; to mow down: Epidemia a secerat sate întregi.^[2][10]
4. (transitive, rare) To wound deeply with a sharp object; to destroy.^[4]
5. (reflexive, rare) To die.^[4]

Word family

• secerător
• seceriș

Related words

• seceră
• Aromanian sitsirari

Usage notes

The proverb cum vei semăna, așa vei secera is the Romanian form of “as you sow, so shall you reap”.^[5] The tool itself is seceră.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. secera
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, 839
5. ^ 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. secera
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7900
7. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 953
8. ^ a b 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. seceră
9. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 580
10. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. secera
11. ^ 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. secerat
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Leviticus 19:9
13. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 665