soacră

Forms

soacră f (plural soacre, masculine equivalent socru)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin socra, a popular form beside classical Latin socrus (“mother-in-law”).^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} Ciorănescu lists it under the masculine socru.^[7] The Latin noun comes from Proto-Indo-European *sweḱrúh₂ (“mother-in-law”).^[1]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian soacrã and Megleno-Romanian soacră.^[7][8][9] The Romance languages have the same feminine form: Italian suocera, Spanish suegra, Portuguese sogra and Catalan sogra.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a Gospel book of 1551–1553, in Matthew 10:35: „Venit-am să desparț ... nevasta spre soacră-sa” “I have come to set ... the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law”.^[2] MDA2 dates it from Coresi's Tetraevanghel of 1560–1561, which tells of Simon Peter's mother-in-law lying sick with fever.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The sense has not changed since the first records: the mother of one's husband or wife.^[3][5] The wedding custom distinguishes soacra mare, the groom's mother, from soacra mică, the bride's mother, and children-in-law politely address her as mamă soacră.^[2][5] Sayings show the proverbial strictness of the mother-in-law: a sta cuiva soacră pe cap is to nag someone, Scriban gives a figurative sense “nagging woman”, and slapdash work is gata ca o cămașă de soacră “ready like a shirt for the mother-in-law”, without neck or hem.^[4][6][2] A guest who arrives during a meal is told jokingly ți-ai găsit o soacră or îți trăiește soacra “your mother-in-law is alive”.^[2]

Timeline

• 1551-1553 – first record, soacră-sa in a Gospel book (Matthew 10:35).^[2]
• 1560-1561 – in Coresi's Tetraevanghel.^[4][3]
• 1640 – soacră-sa in a text of 1640 printed in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[3]
• 1648 – in the New Testament of 1648.^[3]
• 1664 – the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss Slavonic свекра with it.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. mother-in-law: the mother of one's husband or wife.^[5][4][1]
2. soacră mare the groom's mother;^[5][4] soacră mică the bride's mother.^[5][4]
3. (figurative) A nagging, fault-finding woman.^[6]

Related words

• socru
• Aromanian soacrã
• Latin socrus

Usage notes

With a possessive it is used without the article and joined to the pronoun: soacră-mea, soacră-ta, soacră-sa; regionally the genitive is soacră-mei, -tei, -sei.^[2] The plural is soacre.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. soacră
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. soacră
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, 921
5. ^ 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. 1029
6. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1216
7. ^ 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. socru
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 961
9. ^ 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, 158
10. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 256
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8054
12. ^ 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. soacră