steag

Forms

steag n (plural steaguri)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic стѣгъ (stěgŭ, “banner”), a loan from the Slavonic of the church and chancery.^[2][3][4][1] Ciorănescu follows Miklosich, Cihac, Conev and Byhan, and compares Bulgarian стег (steg) and Russian стяг (stjag).^[2] DEX names Russian as the source and the Slavonic word only for comparison.^[5] The word is also found south of the Danube: Megleno-Romanian steag.^[2][6]

The Slavonic word continues Proto-Slavic *stěgъ, found only in South Slavic and of unclear origin; a link with Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“stake, beam”) has been proposed.^[1] The East Slavic word is usually taken from Old Norse stǫng (“pole”), and it is disputed whether it is related to the South Slavic word.^[1] Cihac and Scriban derived the Slavic word from the Old High German word for “pole”, ancestor of ștangă; this is their view only.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a canticle of the Psaltirea Scheiană, of about 1573–1578.^[3][4][9] A document of 1588 lists a „steag cu cruce de arame” “a banner with a brass cross”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In the chronicles of the 17th century the word means a war banner, as when Ureche tells that Ștefan Vodă handed out banners to his army.^[4][9] In the 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons it also translates the word for “sceptre”.^[10] By metonymy it named a troop with its own banner: Nicolae Costin wrote of a „steag de lefecii” “a company of mercenaries”, and DEX defines it as a small unit with its own flag in the medieval Romanian armies.^[4][5] The banii steagului “banner money” was a tax raised at a prince's accession, and the steag de domnie the staff with a silver ball and crescent that the sultan sent to the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia.^[4][11][5]

Folk custom keeps a pole decked with silk kerchiefs and ribbons, carried before the wedding procession in Transylvania and Banat, and in Moldavia a decorated fir carried at the funeral of an unmarried young person.^[4][2][5] Phrases such as a închina steagul “to surrender”, colloquially “to die”, and the modern figurative sense “cause, guiding idea” grew from the flag sense.^[4][3][5] In the army the word gave way to drapel, but Scriban noted that ordinary people said only steag.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1573–1578 – first record, in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3][4]
• 1588 – a banner with a brass cross, in a document.^[9]
• c. 1642–1647 – banners of war in Ureche's chronicle.^[4]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – steagurile in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1801 – in Klein's dictionary, Latin vexillum.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. flag: a piece of cloth fixed to a pole, bearing the colours or emblem of a state or organization; drapel, pennant.^[5][3]
2. steag de domnie: the staff with a silver ball and a crescent that the sultan gave the princes of the Romanian lands as a sign of their rule.^[5]
3. (popular) steag de mire: a flag-like object made of silk kerchiefs, ribbons and ears of wheat, carried at the head of the wedding procession.^[5]
4. (figurative) A doctrine or cause in whose name a group acts.^[5]
5. (historical) A small military unit with its own flag; a troop of armed men.^[5][2]

Word family

• stegar

Related words

• stindard
• drapel

Usage notes

Common phrases are a duce steagul “to lead”, a coborî steagul “to give up”, a ține sus steagul “to fight on” and a ridica steag alb “to surrender, to ask for peace”.^[5][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. steag
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 983
4. ^ 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. steag
5. ^ 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. 1049
6. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 275
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 365
8. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1240
9. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. steag
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. steag
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 614
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Num 2:2
13. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 449