unu

Forms

unu (feminine una)^[1][2] Before a noun the numeral has the forms un (masculine and neuter) and o (feminine); standing for a noun it is unul, una.^[2][3] Genitive and dative: unuia, uneia, or unui, unei with the forms un, o.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ūnus (“one”).^[4][2][3][5] The Latin word, Old Latin oinos, comes from Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos (“one, single”).^[1][6] Wiktionary explains the final ⟨-u⟩ of the numeral: the counting form kept it, while un, which had become the indefinite article, lost it like other words.^[1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian un, Megleno-Romanian un and Istro-Romanian un, with a pronoun form ur.^[4][5][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian uno, French un, Spanish uno and Portuguese um.^[4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[3] Tiktin dates the form un to Neacșu's letter of 1521.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Beside the numeral the word serves as indefinite pronoun, adjective and article.^[11][4] Romanian also has a plural of the indefinite, unii, unele “some”, as Friulian does.^[5] As an adjective it means “single, the only one” and “the same”: suntem la un gând “we are of one mind”.^[2][4] The feminine una is used as a neuter, “something”, and in adverbs such as întruna “continually”;^[2][5] a face una cu pământul means “to raze to the ground”.^[2][5]

Ciorănescu regards some phrases with the word as Balkan, with parallels built on Modern Greek ένας (énas), among them unul și același “one and the same” and unul și unul “the very best”.^[4] He also lists the verb uni “to unite”, which Pușcariu took straight from Latin ūnīre, and unealtă “tool”, which seems to come from une-alte “some other things”.^[4]

Timeline

• early 16th century – the first record, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[3]
• 1521 – un in Neacșu's letter.^[10]
• 1560 – o sută “one hundred” in a text printed in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[11]
• 1570 – the feminine una in Coresi's psalter.^[12]

Meanings

Numeral

1. one: the first of the natural numbers, the unit, written 1 or I: Unu și cu doi fac trei.^[2][1]
2. (adjectival) Single, sole, only.^[2]
3. (adjectival) The same, identical.^[2]
4. (with a negation) Nobody, not one.^[2]

Word family

• uni
• unealtă

Related words

• un
• Latin ūnus

Usage notes

Preceded by câte it forms the distributive: câte unul “one at a time”, unul câte unul “one by one”.^[2] Used for the hour, e unu means “it is one o'clock”, and as an ordinal tomul unu means “the first volume”.^[2] The indefinite article un, o is the same word before a noun.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1173
3. ^ 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, 1380
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. un
5. ^ a b c d e Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 169
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. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 315
8. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9075
10. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. un
11. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. unu
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 26:7
13. ^ DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1170