senin

Forms

senin m or n (feminine singular senină, masculine plural senini, feminine/neuter plural senine)^[1] Old and regional texts have sănin: „Fiind o zi sănină De strălucea cu lumină” “it being a clear day that shone with light” (Barac).^[2][3] The Transylvanian variants serin and sărin keep the Latin /r/;^[4] Budai-Deleanu wrote sărin.^[5][2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin serēnus (“clear, unclouded”).^{[5][6][2][4][1]} Ciorănescu notes that the assimilation of /r/ to the following /n/ is recent, and the Transylvanian forms serin and sărin do not have it.^[5] Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian have Aromanian sirin and Megleno-Romanian sirin.^[5][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian saran, Occitan serè, Catalan serè, French serein, Italian sereno and Spanish sereno.^[5][9][10]

De Vaan derives the Latin adjective from an unattested stative verb “to be dry”, from Proto-Indo-European *kseh₁-ró- (“dry”), with Ancient Greek ξηρός (xērós, “dry”) as a cognate.^[11] The OLD calls the etymology doubtful.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Tetraevanghel of 1561, at Matthew 16:2, of fair weather.^[2] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it at the same verse.^[13] MDA2 starts from the noun in Varlaam's Cazania (1643): „S-au ivit primăvara cu caldul și cu seninul” “spring appeared with its warmth and clear skies”.^[4][3] Constantinescu records a personal name Senin in Transylvania in 1138, which he takes from the noun.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The adjective first described the sky and the weather: cloudless, clear.^[6][2] The noun senin “clear sky, fine weather” is just as old, as in a manuscript of 1691: „toată noaptea lună și senin” “moonlight and clear sky all night”.^[2][3] From the sky it passed to people and their faces, calm and untroubled: fruntea senină is the brow of someone with a clear conscience.^[2][6] Old texts also used the noun for light, day and paradise.^[4]

The phrase din senin or din chiar senin “out of the blue, suddenly, for no reason” comes from thunder and lightning out of a clear sky.^[2][6] The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) has the adjective, the noun and the verb senina.^[15]

Timeline

• 1561 – the first record, in Coresi's Tetraevanghel (Matthew 16:2).^[2]
• 1643 – the noun “clear weather” in Varlaam's Cazania.^[4][3]
• c. 1660 – in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons, glossing Slavonic ведро “fair weather”.^[16]
• 1691 – „toată noaptea lună și senin” in a manuscript.^[2][3]
• 1825 – adjective, noun and verb in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[15]
• 1870 – of the mind and of political situations in Costinescu's dictionary.^[17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (of the sky or weather) Cloudless, clear; bright.^[6][1]
2. (figurative, of people, faces or their manner) Serene, calm, untroubled.^[6][1]

Noun

1. A clear, cloudless sky; fine weather.^[6][18] Din (chiar) senin: suddenly, out of the blue, for no visible reason.^[6][18]

Word family

• seninătate
• însenina

Related words

• Aromanian sirin
• Latin serēnus

Usage notes

A regional noun senin “rock, crag”, plural seninuri, recorded in the Muscel area, is a separate word of unknown origin.^[3][4][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. senin
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. senin
4. ^ 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, 858
5. ^ a b c d e 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. senin
6. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1005
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 952
8. ^ 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, 157
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1188
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7843
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 16:2
14. ^ Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. senin
15. ^ a b 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. 632
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. senin
17. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 504
18. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. senin
19. ^ Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. senin