slavă

Forms

slavă f (plural slăvi)^[1] Besides the plural slăvi, an older popular plural slave is recorded.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic слава (slava, “glory, fame”), a word of the church language.^{[3][4][2][5][1]} Miklosich and Cihac already gave this source.^[3] In Old Church Slavonic it translated Ancient Greek δόξα (dóxa) “glory, praise”.^[6][7] The Slavonic word continues *slàva (“glory, fame”), whose descendants include Russian слава (slava), Polish sława and Bulgarian слава (slava).^[8][7] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *ḱlew-, the root of words for hearing and fame.^[1]

Romanian took a whole family of the word from Slavonic: slăvi from Old Church Slavonic славити (slaviti), proslăvi from прославити (proslaviti) and slavoslovi “to sing hymns” from славословити (slavosloviti).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the psalters of the 16th century: the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century has it in Psalm 8:6.^[9][10] MDA2's first record is the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583).^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word is the glory of God and the honour paid to Him; the Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses it over thirty times.^[11][12] The chroniclers use it for worldly fame, as when Nicolae Costin writes of the Hungarian lords who wanted the glory of King Ladislaus remembered for ever.^[10] Another sense is “the height of the sky”, as in în slava cerului “high up in the air” and a ridica casa în slavă “to raise the roof, make a din”.^[13][4][14] Ciorănescu also notes the senses “happiness” and “sky”.^[3] The exclamation slavă Domnului! “thank God!” became a plain expression of relief.^[4][10] In the old language it was also used with the dative as a preposition, “thanks to”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – slavă “glory” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, Psalm 8:6.^[9]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2]
• 1570 – in Coresi's psalter, Psalm 20:5.^[15]
• 1688 – frequent in the Bucharest Bible, beside the verb slăvi.^[16]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses it with mărire and Latin gloria, majestas.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. glory, fame, renown; praise, exaltation;^[4][2][1] slavă Domnului! “thank God!”, an exclamation of relief.^[4][2][1]
2. The height of the sky, the heavens;^[4][13] a ridica casa în slavă “to raise the roof”.^[4][13]
3. (church) The majesty and greatness of God.^[4]
4. (obsolete, with the dative, as a preposition) Thanks to, owing to.^[4]

Word family

• slăvi
• slavoslovi
• proslăvi

Related words

• slav
• pravoslavnic

Usage notes

The same spelling is the feminine of the adjective slav “Slavic”;^[18] NODEX lists the articled slava veche “Old Church Slavonic”, the language, under its own headword, taken from French slave.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 906
3. ^ a b c d 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. slavă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1025
5. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. slavă
6. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
7. ^ a b Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
8. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 453
9. ^ a b 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 8:6
10. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. slavă
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Numbers 24:11
12. ^ Gaster, M. (1891), Chrestomatie română: texte tipărite și manuscrise (sec. XVI–XIX), dialectale și populare, cu o introducere, gramatică și un glosar româno-francez, vol. II, Leipzig: Brockhaus / București: Socec, p. s.v. slavă
13. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1211
14. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 596
15. ^ 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 20:5
16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Exodus 8:22
17. ^ 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. 445
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. slavă