sumă

Forms

sumă f (plural sume)^[1] Old and regional forms include somă, șumă and sumnă.^[2][3]

Etymology

It goes back to the Latin noun for “total, sum”, the feminine of Latin summus (“highest”), but the dictionaries disagree on the route.^[3][1] Tiktin takes it as an indirect, late loan from Latin, and Candrea as one through Polish suma.^[4][3] DEX names both sources: it is borrowed from Latin summa, with the Polish word beside it.^[5] Ciorănescu argues instead for direct transmission from Latin, because of Albanian sumë, the popular derivative sumedenie and the form somă in 16th-century texts; he adds that the word later left popular use and now lives as a learned word.^[3] Wiktionary leans the same way.^[1]

MDA2 and the DLR give a multiple etymology: the Latin noun, Modern Greek σοῦμμα (soûmma), German Summe, Italian somma and French somme.^[2][6] MDN names Latin and German, after French.^[7] The variant șumă reflects the pronunciation of Hungarian summa.^[3][4][6] The word has a counterpart south of the Danube, Aromanian sumã “sum, total”, which Papahagi derives from Greek.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Gospel book of 1561, at Matthew 25:15, in the old sense “number, amount”.^[4] MDA2 has it in Coresi's Molitvenic of 1564.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the old language it meant chiefly “number, quantity”, as in a chronicle's „o sumă de turci” “a number of Turks”, quoted by Tiktin.^[4] The senses “amount of money” and the arithmetical “total” are the main ones today.^[5][3] The DLR records an old sense “purse”, compared with a Russian word for “bag”.^[6] The derivative sumedenie “a great many” is popular, while sumar “summary” follows French sommaire.^[3]

Timeline

• 1561 – in Coresi's Gospel book (Matthew 25:15), the first record.^[4]
• 1564 – in Coresi's Molitvenic.^[2]
• 1648 – șumă in the New Testament.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The sum or total obtained by adding numbers, quantities or things of the same kind.^[5][7]
2. An amount of money: O sumă importantă a fost donată spitalului.^[5][1]
3. A large number, a multitude.^[5]

Word family

• sumedenie
• sumuliță
• sumușoară
• însuma

Related words

• sumar
• Latin summa

Usage notes

A-și face suma means to earn as much as one needs.^[5] Mathematics distinguishes sumă aritmetică and sumă algebrică.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1056
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. sumă
4. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sumă
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1073
6. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sumă
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. sumă
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 991