spaimă

Forms

spaimă f (plural spaime)^[1] Besides the plural spaime, older texts have spăimi: „din petrecute spăimi” “from frights suffered before”; a regional plural is spăimuri.^[2][3]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[4][5][1] The usual explanation is inherited from Vulgar Latin *expavīmen, a derivative of expaveō (“to be terrified”), proposed by Cipariu, Pușcariu and Tiktin.^[4][6] Ciorănescu finds that it fits the meaning but is hard to square with the sound changes.^[4] Candrea's derivation from Latin spasma, from Ancient Greek σπασμός (spasmós, “convulsion”), seems even less likely to him.^[4][1] MDA2 and the DLR give no etymon and only compare the verb spăimânta.^[3][2]

Graur held that the noun, that verb and speria go back to one root, though how they are linked is unclear.^[7] Ciorănescu adds that Transylvanian Saxon took the word from Romanian.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and the DLR quote it first from the Codicele Voronețean, a 16th-century manuscript of the Acts: „și-mi fu spaimă” “and fear came upon me” (Acts 22:17).^[6][2] MDA2 dates its first record to Coresi's Cazania of 1581.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The sense has stayed close to “sudden, violent fear”.^[5][3] From it came a thing or person that causes terror, as in spaima ienicerilor “the terror of the janissaries” in Ghica, and Bolintineanu's plural spaime “terrifying shapes”.^[6][5] Popular speech also uses it for a sickly fear, a nervous illness.^[5] The locution de spaimă “terrifying” also came to mean “extraordinary, astonishing”.^[3][5]

The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it to translate Old Church Slavonic ужасъ (užasŭ) and страхъ (straxŭ).^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – „și-mi fu spaimă” in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[6][2]
• 1581 – spaimă in Coresi's Cazania.^[3][2]
• 1589 – the plural spaimele in Coresi's Psalter.^[9]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic “terror” with it.^[8]
• 1688 – spaimă and spaime in the Bucharest Bible.^[10][11]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda glosses it Latin pavor, terror.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Strong, violent fear caused by something sudden or dangerous; terror, dread.^[5][3]
2. (popular) A morbid fear; a neurosis.^[5]
3. A being, thing or event that frightens.^[5][6]

Word family

• spăimos

Related words

• spăimânta
• înspăimânta
• speria

Usage notes

Common phrases are de spaimă “terrifying; extraordinary”, a băga spaima în cineva “to strike fear into someone” and a trage o spaimă “to have a bad fright”.^[5][13]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. spaimă
3. ^ 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, 939
4. ^ a b c d e 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. spaimă
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1036
6. ^ 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. spaimă
7. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1963), Etimologii romînești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. spaimă
8. ^ 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. spaimă
9. ^ 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 87:17
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Luke 4:36
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Luke 21:11
12. ^ 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. 658
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. spaimă