sever

Forms

sever m or n (feminine singular severă, masculine plural severi, feminine/neuter plural severe)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French sévère and directly borrowed from Latin sevērus (“stern, strict”).^[2][3][4][1] Marcu and Maneca add Italian severo, Scriban names only Latin.^[5][6] The French word is itself borrowed from Latin.^[7]

De Vaan derives the Latin word from Proto-Italic *seχwēro- (“steadfast”), from Proto-Indo-European *seǵʰ- (“to hold”); the older explanation as a compound of se- (“apart”) and vērus (“true”) fits the meaning poorly.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in I. Eliade's (Heliade Rădulescu's) translation of Byron's Don Juan (1847), of a family “so strict” in the matter of marriage that it married among itself.^[3][4] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 glosses it with aspru and strașnic.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Used first of people who judge and punish without indulgence, the word was soon applied to laws and rules that allow no exception, to a stern look or bearing, and by extension to what is solemn.^[3][2][4] A further sense, “plain, without ornament”, is used of architecture and style.^[2][6]

Timeline

• 1847 – first record, in Heliade Rădulescu's Don Juan.^[3][4]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[9]
• 1886 – in Barcianu's dictionary, glossed streng.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. strict, stern: judging and punishing without indulgence; also as an adverb.^[2][3][1]
2. Admitting no departure from rules or norms; rigid: o lege severă.^[2][3]
3. Of a look or bearing: hard, grave; by extension solemn.^[2][3]
4. Plain, without needless ornament; austere.^[2][6]

Usage notes

Old texts have a different noun séver “north; north wind”, stressed on the first syllable, from Old Church Slavonic сѣверъ (sěverŭ).^[3][4][11] It is first recorded in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century and used by Dosoftei: „Din sever și din mări de departe” “from the north and the distant seas”.^[3][12][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 1010
3. ^ 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, 867
4. ^ 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. sever
5. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. sever
6. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1192
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. sever
10. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 583
11. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sever
12. ^ 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 47:2