soră

Forms

soră f (plural surori)^[1] The older form sor appears in the Mărgăritare: „Avraam ... temându-se zise că sor îmi iaste” “Abraham, being afraid, said: she is my sister”.^[2] Folk poetry has suror for rhyme: „Că-mi ești frățior / Și io-ți sunt suror” “for you are my little brother and I am your sister”.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin soror (“sister”).^[3][4][5][1] The regular result was ⟨sor⟩, from the Latin nominative with the loss of final /r/, later fitted to the feminine nouns in ⟨-ă⟩.^[5][1] The plural ⟨surori⟩ continues sorōrēs, with the same unequal stems as noră.^[5][1] Wiktionary thinks a source in Vulgar Latin *sora less likely.^[1] The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *suésōr (“sister”).^[6]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian sorã, Megleno-Romanian soră and Istro-Romanian sor.^[5][7][8][1] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian saur, Italian suora, Sardinian sorre, Occitan sorre, French sœur and Catalan sor.^[5][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in a Slavonic–Romanian document of 1487.^[2] MDA2 gives Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581 as the first Romanian text.^[4] A 16th-century Gospel text quoted by Tiktin asks: „Frații ... și surorile lui au nu toți între noi sămt?” “and his brothers and sisters, are they not all with us?” (Matthew 13:56).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Besides the sister by blood, the word names a close friend (soră de cruce, a sworn sister), a girl who accompanies the bride or groom (soră de mireasă) and a stepsister (soră vitregă).^[4][2] It became a familiar form of address to a woman, “my dear”, and figuratively a companion, or a nation or language of the same origin as another.^[3][2] In convents it is the lowest rank of nun, and in modern usage a nurse, soră medicală;^[3][2] Tiktin cites soră de caritate from Laurian and Massim.^[3][2] Old sor lives on in Transylvania and in phrases such as soru-mea “my sister” and the plant name sor-cu-frate.^[5]

The derivative surată “sworn sister, friend” is formed like fârtat;^[5][10] Pascu derived it from a Latin *sororiata, and Ciorănescu rejects Candrea's link with a Slavic word.^[5][10] Hungarian borrowed it as szúráta.^[5]

Timeline

• 1487 – a record in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[2]
• 1581 – soră in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[4]
• 1649 – the form sor in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses sor 25 times, as in Genesis 12:13.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sister: a girl or woman in relation to the other children of the same parents, or of one parent: soră vitregă “stepsister”, soră de lapte “foster sister”.^[3][1]
2. (familiar, in the vocative) A form of address to a girl or woman, meaning “dear”.^[3]
3. (figurative) A companion or friend; a country or language related to another: limbi surori “sister languages”.^[3]
4. The lowest rank of nun in a convent; a nun of that rank.^[3]
5. A nurse: sora de serviciu “the nurse on duty”.^[3]

Word family

• surioară
• surată
• surăție
• sorică

Related words

• frate
• Latin soror

Usage notes

The phrase soră cu moartea “sister to death” means “dreadful, very great”: un somn soră cu moartea.^[3][2] The popular variants suroră and sor are still heard.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. soră
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1034
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 935
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. soră
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 963
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 270
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8102
10. ^ a b 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. 158
11. ^ 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. sor
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 12:13