toamnă

Forms

toamnă f (plural toamne)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin autumnus (“autumn”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} It survives in all four branches: Aromanian toamnã, Megleno-Romanian toamnă and Istro-Romanian tomne.^[2][6][7][8] Its Romance cognates include French automne, Spanish otoño and Portuguese outono.^[2]

The Latin masculine became feminine by analogy with vară and primăvară, as with iarnă.^[2][1] MDA2 and the DLR start from Vulgar Latin *automna.^[3][9] Ciorănescu rejects Pușcariu's *autumnium as unnecessary and Graur's explanation through a derivative with unstressed /u/ as insufficient; he starts from *otumna, with the diphthong reduced as in *oricla from auricula, and /u/ > /o/ by assimilation.^[2] Wiktionary adds a possible intermediate *tumna.^[1] The origin of the Latin word is unclear; de Vaan finds a borrowing, perhaps from Etruscan, conceivable.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1593, with the sense “autumn”.^[11] MDA2 dates the word from Miron Costin, who compares the mild winters of Italy with „cum sînt la noi toamnile” “as our autumns are”.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense of the season, and it forms many adverbial phrases: de toamnă “autumn” (of crops and events), astă-toamnă “last autumn”, la toamnă “next autumn”.^[4][11] Figuratively it stands for the decline of life, the age before old age.^[3][12] Regionally dulcele toamnei names the Nativity Fast.^[3] Romanian formed tomnatic “autumnal”, tomna “to spend the autumn” and întomna “(of autumn) to set in”.^[2]

Timeline

• 1593 – a document, the first record.^[11]
• 1664 – toamnă glosses Slavonic есенъ in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1733 – „Toamna friguroasă, tinoasă” “a cold, muddy autumn”.^[9]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary has toámna with the adjective tomnátec.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. autumn, fall: the season between summer and winter, in the northern hemisphere from 23 September to 22 December: grâu de toamnă winter wheat sown in autumn;^[4][3][11] La toamnă ne mutăm.^[4][3][11]
2. (figurative) The decline of life, the years before old age.^[3]
3. (regional) dulcele toamnei: the Nativity Fast.^[3]

Word family

• tomnatic
• tomna
• tomnat
• întomna
• tomniu

Related words

• Aromanian toamnã

Usage notes

Besides the plural toamne, MDA2 records a popular plural tomni.^[3]

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. toamnă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1231
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 1129
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 812
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1039
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 295
8. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 360
9. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. toamnă
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. toamnă
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 656
13. ^ 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. toamnă
14. ^ 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. 457