sicriu

Forms

sicriu n (plural sicrie)^[1] Older and regional variants include secriu, săcriu, sicrin and săcrin.^[2][3] Varlaam's Cazania (1643) has secriiu: „în secriiu veșminte sau bani” “garments or money in a chest”.^[4][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Hungarian szekrény (“chest, cupboard; coffin”).^{[2][3][5][6][4][1][7]} The Hungarian word, recorded from about 1416, is a wanderword that reached Hungarian through Italian, French or German and goes back to Latin scrinium (“case, box for papers”).^[8][9][1] Tiktin compares scrin, which came by another route.^[5]

Ciorănescu calls it a doublet of that noun, which he takes from Slavonic through Bulgarian or Russian; a direct descent of the noun from the Latin word, as Diez, Cihac and Körting proposed, he rejects.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and Tamás date the first record to 1473, in a Moldavian Slavonic document, where the word meant a chest or box.^[5][6] In Romanian texts it appears in Varlaam's Cazania of 1643, of a chest for clothes or money.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The old sense was a chest, a box or a cupboard, and in older texts also a drawer.^[3][4] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 calls the basket of the infant Moses „un sicriu de papură” “a chest of rushes”.^[5][6] The phrase sicriul legii was the Ark of the Covenant.^[3][11] Klein's dictionary of 1801 glosses the word with Latin scrinium, cista and tumba, a tomb.^[12] The Hungarian word already meant “coffin” from 1510.^[8]

In the standard language the sense “coffin” has replaced the old one, which lives on in the regions: Gáldi and DEX note the old sense “chest, cupboard” in regional speech.^[12][2] Tiktin cites a source from the 19th century that in Transylvania a sicriu had a flat lid and a copârșeu a pitched one.^[5]

Timeline

• 1473 – the first record, in a Moldavian Slavonic document.^[5][6]
• 1570 – recorded in a Wallachian document.^[6]
• 1643 – secriiu “chest” in Varlaam's Cazania.^[3][4]
• 1688 – sicriu de papură in the Bucharest Bible (Exodus 2:3).^[5][13]
• 1801 – glossed scrinium, cista, tumba in Klein's dictionary.^[12]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda gives the diminutives sicriaș and sicriuț.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A coffin: a box of wood or metal with a lid, in which the dead are buried; coșciug.^[2][3][1]
2. (regional) A chest or box; also a cupboard.^[2][3]
3. (dated) sicriul legii: the Ark of the Covenant.^[3]

Word family

• sicriaș

Related words

• scrin
• Hungarian szekrény
• Latin scrinium

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1014
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 882
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. sicríu
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. sicríu
6. ^ a b c d e Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 695
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 525
8. ^ a b Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 703
9. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó, p. s.v. szekrény
10. ^ 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. scrin
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 590
12. ^ a b c Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 118
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ex 2:3
14. ^ 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. 642