turmă

Forms

turmă f (plural turme)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin turma (“troop of cavalry; crowd”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} In Latin the word named a small squadron of horsemen; the OLD compares turba (“crowd”).^[6]

The word survives in Aromanian as turmã and in Istro-Romanian as turme.^[2][7][8] Its other cognates are Italian torma, Sardinian truma and Friulian torme, and there is Albanian turmë.^[2][5][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The form turmă is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[9] Tiktin cites the Codicele Voronețean, at 1 Peter 5:2, for the flock of believers.^[4] MDA2 gives the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is a large group of sheep or other animals living together.^[10][3] In church language turma lui Hristos “Christ's flock” is the community of believers, as in Coresi's Pravila.^[4] Applied to people outside the church it became derogatory: a disorderly crowd, a docile mass.^[10][3] MDA2 also records an old sense “cavalry unit”.^[3]

Ciorănescu lists borrowings from Romanian in Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian turma, Ukrainian and Polish turma.^[2][11] He rejects the view that the derivative turmac “two-year-old colt or buffalo” came from Bulgarian.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – turmă in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[9]
• c. 1551-1558 – the plural turmele in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[12]
• c. 1563-1583 – the flock of believers in the Codicele Voronețean.^[4]
• c. 1573-1578 – turmă in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic “flock” with turmă.^[13]
• 1688 – turme and turmele throughout the Bucharest Bible.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A flock of sheep, or a herd of other animals, domestic or wild, that live together; a flock of birds.^[10][3][1]
2. (derogatory) A mob: a large disorderly crowd of people.^[10][1]
3. (church) The faithful, the flock of believers.^[10][4]

Word family

• turmac
• înturma
• turmaș

Related words

• Aromanian turmã
• Latin turma

Usage notes

Proverbs use the flock and its shepherd: o turmă și un păstor “one flock and one shepherd” stands for unity under one leader.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. turmă
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1305
4. ^ 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. turmă
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9005
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. turma
7. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1058
8. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 373
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 77:57
10. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1155
11. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1358
12. ^ 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 77:76
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. turmă
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 29:2
15. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 525