soție

Forms

soție f (plural soții)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian soț + -ie, according to DEX, DLR, MDA2 and Wiktionary.^[2][3][4][1] Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of the noun, which continues Latin socius (“companion, partner”).^[5] Wiktionary calls it a Romanian innovation that displaced the older soață.^[1] Cihac in 1870 set it beside Latin socia (“female companion”), and Șăineanu derived it from the latter.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, at Psalm 121:2.^[8] Tiktin's first record is a Gospel book of 1551–1553 (Matthew 18:33), and MDA2's the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583).^[9][4] In the old texts it meant “fellowship” and “companion”: Coresi's Gospel calls Jesus „vameșilor soție și păcătoșilor” “a companion of publicans and sinners”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Tiktin sets out the old senses: “company, partnership” (Dosoftei: Și-mblară amândoi în soție “and the two of them went together”), “companion, associate” (Nicolae Costin, of a fellow emperor chosen to share the throne), and in the 16th–17th centuries “married couple”: the Govora law book glosses fieșce soție as “the husband and the wife”.^[9] Seventeenth-century lexicons gloss it with Slavonic words for “friend, companion” and “spouse”.^[10]

The sense “wife” came to dominate, but the word was also used of a husband, and of an animal's mate: in folk poetry the turtle dove that has lost its soție will not take another.^[9][2] Ciorănescu notes that the word is now used mainly in Muntenia and Moldavia.^[5] The old sense “companion” lives on in a Maramureș variant of the Miorița: Hei, voi, soțiile mele “hey, you, my companions”.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – first record, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 121:2).^[8]
• 1551–1553 – in a Gospel book (Matthew 18:33).^[9]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[4]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic words for “friend” and “companion” with it.^[10]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda: “companion, comrade”, and with de căsătorie “spouse”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. wife: a married woman considered in relation to her husband.^[2]
2. (obsolete) Husband.^[2]
3. (popular) The mate of an animal.^[2]
4. (popular) companion, fellow; friend.^[2][4]

Related words

• soț
• soață
• însoți

Usage notes

The plural is soții; old and popular speech also has a plural soție.^[3][4]

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. 1035
3. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. soție
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 938
5. ^ 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. soț
6. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 257
7. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 605
8. ^ 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 121:2
9. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. soție
10. ^ a b 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. soție
11. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. soție
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Filimon 1:17
13. ^ 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. 652