treabă

Forms

treabă f (plural treburi or trebi)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic трѣба (trěba), from Proto-Slavic *terba.^[1][2] DER gives the Slavonic noun in the sense “trade, business” and the form трѣбѣ (trěbě) “need, necessity”, following Miklosich and Cihac.^[3] MDA2 writes the Slavonic etymon трѣвь (trěvĭ), and the DLR also gives an Old Slavonic source.^[4][5] In Old Church Slavonic the noun meant “sacrifice, offering, worship”, and its dative was used for “need, necessity”.^[6]

Wiktionary compares Bulgarian трябва (trjabva) and Serbo-Croatian treba “it is needed”.^[1] Scriban names Russian треба (tréba) beside the Old Church Slavonic word.^[7] The Romanian verb trebui “to be needed” is a separate loan, from Old Church Slavonic трѣбовати (trěbovati).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1564, in a print of Coresi.^[8] Coresi's psalter of 1570 has the word at Psalm 31:7.^[9] In Coresi's Carte de învățătură (1581), MDA2's first record, someone prays about „treaba ce venise” “the matter he had come for”: the sense is “matter, business”.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word meant chiefly “matter, affair”, and in the plural the business of the state: Miron Costin writes of „toate trebile crăiei” “all the affairs of the kingdom”.^[5] The 19th century still named a ministry of internal or external affairs with it, ministerul trebilor dinlăuntru or din afară.^[8] Beside it stood the senses “need, use” (Gaster's glossary records “utility”, “necessity” and “success” in the old texts) and “occupation, work”.^[10][3]

The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) glosses de treabă as “useful, fit” and om de treabă as “an honest, upright man”, the source of the modern adjectival phrase de treabă “decent, kind”.^[11][2] In modern Romanian the main senses are “work” and “activity”, with many set phrases: a avea treabă “to be busy”, a-și vedea de treabă “to mind one's own business”, nu e treaba mea “it's none of my business”.^[2][4] Regional senses are “habit” and “situation, state of things”, and DER also notes “bodily needs”.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1564 – first record, in a print of Coresi.^[8]
• 1570 – in Coresi's psalter, Psalm 31:7.^[9]
• 1581 – treaba “the matter” in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[4][5]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – 44 times in the Bucharest Bible, with the plurals trebi and trebii.^[13]
• 1825 – de treabă “useful” and om de treabă “an honest man” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. An activity or occupation: a avea treabă “to be busy”;^[2][4] a-și vedea de treabă “to work steadily; to mind one's own business”.^[2][4]
2. work, labour: a se pune pe treabă “to get down to work”;^[2][1] e treabă “there is a lot to do”.^[2][1]
3. A deed, a piece of work; in de treabă “decent, kind, good-natured”;^[2] mare treabă! (ironic) “big deal!”.^[2]
4. A matter, affair, concern: nu e treaba mea “it's none of my business”;^[2][1] ce treabă ai cu el? “what is he to you?”.^[2][1]
5. (regional) A habit, usually a bad one.^[2]
6. (regional) A situation, the way things are: se vede treaba că “it seems that”.^[2][7]
7. (euphemistic) One's bodily needs.^[3]

Word family

• trebălui
• trebnic
• netrebnic

Related words

• trebui
• trebuință
• întrebuința

Usage notes

The plural is treburi, with the older and colloquial trebi.^[2][4] MDA2 records the variants trabă and trăbă.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1142
3. ^ 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. treabă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1267
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. treabă
6. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org, p. s.v. трѣба
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1342
8. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. treabă
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 31:7
10. ^ Gaster, M. (1891), Chrestomatie română: texte tipărite și manuscrise (sec. XVI–XIX), dialectale și populare, cu o introducere, gramatică și un glosar româno-francez, vol. II, Leipzig: Brockhaus / București: Socec, p. s.v. treabă
11. ^ 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. 718
12. ^ 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. treabă
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 3 Kingdoms 11:28