suflet

Forms

suflet n (plural suflete)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *sufflitus (“breath”), a noun built on sufflō (“to blow”) as hālitus (“breath”) was built on hālō (“to breathe”); this is the explanation of Meyer and Candrea, which DEX, MDA2 and the DLR follow.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Pascu took it from sufflātus with a change of suffix.^[2] Ciorănescu and Scriban explain it instead as a Romanian formation on sufla with the suffix -et, as in muget and tunet.^[2][6]

The Latin verb is formed on flō (“to blow”).^[1] Wiktionary compares the history of spīritus (“breath, spirit”), from spīrō (“to breathe”).^[1] The word also survives in Aromanian: suflit.^[7][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Hurmuzaki psalter, of the early 16th century, already uses the word for the soul: the articled sufletul occurs more than a hundred times in it, from Psalm 6:3 on.^[9] MDA2 dates it from the Codicele Voronețean, and Tiktin from the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4][10] The older sense “breath” is in the 16th-century texts as well: Coresi's psalter says of idols „nece iaste suflet în rostul lor” “nor is there any breath in their mouths”.^[10][5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, “breath”, is now old and popular and lives on in phrases: a-și trage sufletul “to catch one's breath”, într-un suflet “in one breath, at a run”, cu sufletul la gură “out of breath”.^[5][10][3] Breath stood for life (a-și da sufletul “to give up the ghost”), and in Christian use for the immortal soul, the main sense of the old texts.^[3][6] From the soul the word passed to the mind and feelings, to character, kindness and courage, and to a person, as in counting the inhabitants of a place.^[3][4]

Copil de suflet “adopted child” is in Klein's dictionary of 1801, and the Lexicon of Buda (1825) has the oath pe sufletul meu “upon my soul”.^[11][12]

Timeline

• early 16th century – sufletul “the soul” in the Hurmuzaki psalter.^[9]
• 16th century – “breath” in Coresi's psalter.^[10]
• c. 1563–1583 – the Codicele Voronețean.^[4]
• 1801 – de suflet “adoptive” in Klein's dictionary.^[11]
• 1825 – the oath pe sufletul meu and nici un suflet “not a soul” in the Lexicon of Buda.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The mind, the psyche: a person's emotional, intellectual and volitional life;^[1] din tot sufletul “with all one's heart”.^[3]
2. Character; kindness, humanity; courage: A rămas un om cu suflet. “He remained a kind-hearted man.”^[3]
3. The essence, the vital element of a thing or an action.^[3]
4. (philosophy, religion) The soul: the immortal spiritual substance that gives a person life and individuality.^[3][1]
5. Life;^[1] (by extension) the heart.^[3]
6. A person, an individual; an inhabitant: un sat de trei sute de suflete “a village of three hundred souls”.^[3]
7. (popular) breath, breathing.^[3][1]
8. copil de suflet “adopted child”.^[3]

Word family

• însufleți
• sufletesc
• sufletește
• sufletist
• suflețel

Related words

• sufla
• Aromanian suflit

Usage notes

Many expressions use the word: a avea ceva pe suflet “to have something on one's conscience”, a-i scoate cuiva sufletul “to wear someone out with nagging”, a lua de suflet “to adopt (a child)”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. sufla
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1070
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, 1046
5. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. suflet
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1262
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 988
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 982
9. ^ 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 6:3
10. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. suflet
11. ^ a b 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. 452
12. ^ a b 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. 683