tunet

Forms

tunet n (plural tunete)^[1] An old variant tunit occurs in an 18th-century text: „De unde sânt tunitile și trăsnitile și fulgerii?” “Where do the thunders and the thunderbolts and the lightnings come from?” (1750).^[2][3]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[4][5] Ciorănescu, the DLR and MDA2 take it as formed from Romanian tuna + -et, from tuna “to thunder”, on the model of sunet from suna.^[4][2][3] Scriban too derives it from the verb, on the model of the same noun.^[6] The verb continues Latin tonō (“to thunder”).^[4]

Diez, Tiktin and Candrea derived the noun from Latin tonitrus (“thunder”), and Ciorănescu reports their view.^[4] Tiktin explains that the unusual ending was replaced by the suffix ⟨-itus⟩.^[7] DEX takes it from tonitrum influenced by the noun for “sound”, and Wiktionary from the form in ⟨-us⟩, possibly with the same influence.^[5][1] The Latin noun is from the verb, with an ⟨r⟩ perhaps after fulgetrum (“lightning”).^[8][1] Its Romance descendants include French tonnerre and Spanish tronido.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1561, in Coresi's Tetraevanghel at John 12:29.^[7] Coresi's psalter of 1570 has tunetului and tunetelor.^[10][11] MDA2 gives Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură (1581), which has „Codrul tot ardea cu foc, cu fulgere și cu tunete” “the whole forest was burning with fire, with lightning and thunder”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word names the loud noise that follows lightning.^[5] In the 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons it glosses Slavonic перунъ, the thunderbolt, and MDA2 and DEX still record the rare sense “thunderbolt”.^[12][3][5] By extension it is any loud, booming noise, as in tunet de aplauze “a thunder of applause”.^[5][6] Tiktin also records it as the chamber of a firearm, a sense he takes from tonnerre.^[7]

Timeline

• 1561 – in Coresi's Tetraevanghel, the first record.^[7]
• 1570 – tunetului in Coresi's psalter (Psalm 103:8).^[11]
• 1581 – tunete “thunder” in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[3][2]
• 1649 – glosses Slavonic перунъ “thunderbolt” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – tunete și ploaie “thunder and rain” in the Bucharest Bible (1 Samuel 12:18).^[7]
• 1750 – the variant tunit.^[2]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses it with Latin tonitru.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. thunder, a thunderclap: the loud noise that accompanies a flash of lightning.^[5][1]
2. (rare) A thunderbolt.^[5][3]
3. (figurative) A loud, booming noise; an uproar.^[5][3]

Related words

• tuna
• tun
• sunet
• Latin tonitrus

Usage notes

De tunet means “powerful, booming”.^[3] The old plural tunure and the regional variants tunăt and tunit are recorded besides tunete.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. tunet
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1299
4. ^ a b c d 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. tuna
5. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1153
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1355
7. ^ 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. tunet
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8780
10. ^ 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 76:17
11. ^ 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 103:8
12. ^ a b 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. tunet
13. ^ 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. 460