surd

Forms

surd m or n (feminine singular surdă, masculine plural surzi, feminine/neuter plural surde)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin surdus (“deaf”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Wiktionary traces the Latin word to Proto-Indo-European *swer- (“ringing, whistling”); de Vaan notes that this root does not explain the meaning.^[1][6]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian surdu, Megleno-Romanian surd and Istro-Romanian surd.^[2][7][8] Its Romance relatives include Italian sordo, French sourd, Occitan sort, Spanish sordo and Portuguese surdo.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (early 16th century) has the feminine surda (Psalm 57:4).^[9] MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), where the speaker says that, like a deaf man, he did not hear.^[4][3] Coresi's Cazania of 1581 speaks of opening the ears of the deaf: „surzilor urechile destupași”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From “deaf” the adjective moved to “unwilling to listen, unmoved”, as in a rămâne surd la ceva “to turn a deaf ear to something”.^[10][11] The adverb de-a surda “in vain” has the same development as Latin absurdus, and Aromanian has na surda.^[2] Pușcariu explains it as speaking where no one listens.^[12]

Applied to sounds, surd means “muffled, dull”;^[11][10] Scriban called zgomot surd “a dull noise” a phrase taken from French.^[11][10] Phonetics uses it for voiceless consonants.^[10] The Lexicon of Buda (1825) records codru surd for a very dense forest.^[13]

Derivatives include asurzi and surzi “to deafen; to go deaf”, which Ciorănescu traces to Latin surdēscō, and surzenie “deafness”.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – surda in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 57:4).^[9]
• c. 1573–1578 – the Psaltirea Scheiană, MDA2's first record.^[4][3]
• 1577 – surd in Coresi's Psalter (Psalm 37:14).^[14]
• 1581 – „surzilor urechile destupași” in Coresi's Cazania.^[3]
• 1660 – surd in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda, with codru surd “a very dense forest”.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. deaf, wholly or partly; often as a noun, a deaf person.^[10][1]
2. (figurative) Unwilling to hear or understand; unmoved;^[10] a rămâne surd la ceva “to turn a deaf ear to something”.^[10]
3. (phonetics, of consonants) voiceless.^[10]
4. Of sounds and noises, muffled, dull;^[10] cameră surdă “anechoic chamber”.^[10]
5. (figurative) Of feelings or conflicts, smouldering, hidden; of pains, dull, vague.^[10]

Word family

• asurzi
• surzilă
• surzi
• surzenie

Related words

• Aromanian surdu
• Latin surdus

Usage notes

De-a surda or de surda means “in vain”.^[10][2] Surdul n-aude, dar le potrivește “the deaf man does not hear, but he makes it fit” is said of someone who answers something other than what was asked.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. surd
3. ^ 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. surd
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, 1071
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8474
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. 994
8. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 153
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 57:4
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1079
11. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1270
12. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 157
13. ^ 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. 688
14. ^ 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 37:14
15. ^ 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. surd