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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word somn

somn1 sheatfish

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1645 the Romanian translation of Herodotus
Borrowed from
Old Church Slavonic сомъ
Ultimate origin
Proto-Slavic *somъ

Pronunciation

Forms

somn m (plural somni)[1]

Etymology

The word for the sheatfish is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic сомъ (somŭ).[2][3][1] Ciorănescu cites the Russian form, and MDA2 compares Ukrainian сом (som), Serbo-Croatian сом (som) and Bulgarian сом (som); the DLR takes the word from these modern Slavic languages.[4][3][5] The Slavonic word continues Proto-Slavic *somъ (“sheatfish”), which has cognates in Baltic and no certain further etymology.[6][1]

An older Romanian form was som, and Megleno-Romanian som is the form south of the Danube.[4][3] The ⟨mn⟩ of the modern form comes from its likeness to the word for sleep.[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Romanian translation of Herodotus of 1645.[7] MDA2 and the DLR quote first a household medical book of 1846, which counts the sheatfish among the heavy, hard-to-digest fish together with the beluga and the carp.[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its one sense, the large catfish of the Danube and the Volga basin.[2][3] Fishermen name the fish by size: somn moacă or somotei for a small one, somn iaprac for a middling one and somn pană for a very large one.[7] Ciorănescu explains somotei “small sheatfish” as a diminutive of the old variant som.[4]

Timeline

  • 1645 – in the Romanian translation of Herodotus.[7]
  • 1846 – in Episcupescu's Practica doctorului de casă.[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The sheatfish or wels catfish (Silurus glanis): a large predatory freshwater fish without scales, with a long body, a broad flat head, a wide mouth with strong teeth and long barbels.[2][3][1]

Word family

  • somotei

somn2 sleep

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1563–1583 Codicele Voronețean
Inherited from
Latin somnus
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *swépnos
Etymology tree of somn2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin somnus
French somme
Italian sonno
Romanian somn
Spanish sueño
From the same root · somn2
Latin īnsomnis ← somnus
Latin īnsomnium ← somnus
Latin sēmisomnus ← somnus
Latin somniculus ← somnus

Pronunciation

Forms

somn n (plural (very rare) somnuri)[1]

Etymology

The word for sleep is inherited from Latin somnus (“sleep”), from Proto-Indo-European *swépnos.[4][8][9][3][2][1] It survives in all four branches: Aromanian somnu, Megleno-Romanian son and Istro-Romanian somn.[4][10][11][12] Capidan, however, takes the Megleno-Romanian form from Middle Bulgarian.[13] The Romance cognates include Dalmatian samno, Italian sonno, French somme, Catalan son, Spanish sueño and Portuguese sono.[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the story of the young man who fell from a window during Paul's sermon: „Plecă-se giurele de somnu și cădzu din comarnicu” “the youth was overcome by sleep and fell from the upper room” (Acts 20:9).[7][3] Coresi's Psalter of 1570 has it in Psalms 126 and 131.[14]

Semantic evolution

Besides sleep itself, the word names the need to sleep: mi-e somn “I am sleepy”, îmi vine somn “I am getting sleepy”.[7][4][1] Somnul de veci “the eternal sleep” is death.[2] The plural is rare: MDA2 records somnuri and soamne.[3]

Romanian derived the verb somna “to sleep” (archaic), somnoros “sleepy”, somnișor (a name of the opium poppy and other plants) and somnorea.[4] The REW connects somnoros with Latin somnolentus, with a change of suffix.[9]

Timeline

  • 1563–1583 – somnu in the Codicele Voronețean.[3][7]
  • 1570 – in Coresi's Psalter.[14]
  • c. 1600–1650 – “they thought he spoke of the rest of sleep”, in a Gospel homily.[5]
  • 1660 – a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon glosses Slavonic сънъ with it.[15]
  • 1688 – frequent in the Bucharest Bible.[16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. sleep: the natural periodic state of rest of animals and people, in which consciousness stops wholly or in part and breathing and circulation slow down: A dormit un somn adânc toată noaptea.[2][3][1]
  2. sleepiness, the need to sleep: Mi-e somn.[4][7][1]

Word family

  • somnoros
  • somnișor
  • somnorea
  • somna
  • nesomn

Usage notes

Phrases with somn “sleep” include a trage un pui de somn “to take a nap”, a dormi somnul iepurelui “to sleep lightly”, a-l fura somnul “to doze off” and the wish somn ușor! “sleep well!”.[2][7] The two nouns differ in the plural: the fish has somni, sleep the rare somnuri.[2][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1033
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 932
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. somn
  5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. somn
  6. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 461
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. somn
  8. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 146
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8086
  10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 963
  11. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 345
  12. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 150
  13. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 270
  14. ^ 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 131:4
  15. ^ 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. somnul
  16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 28:16

Related etymologies

  • prea · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • înșela · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • pară · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • veste · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • coș · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • lin · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • râs · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • suci · also from Old Church Slavonic
Cite this entry

“Somn.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/somn. Accessed 11 Nov. 2026.

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