vârtos

Forms

vârtos m or n (feminine singular vârtoasă, masculine plural vârtoși, feminine/neuter plural vârtoase)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin virtuōsus, an adjective formed on virtūs (“manliness, strength, virtue”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} DEX and MDA2 mark the Latin adjective as reconstructed;^[4][3][5] Ciorănescu follows Cipariu, Densusianu and Iordan, and notes that Pușcariu believed the Latin word had not existed.^[4][3][5] The Latin noun itself is formed on vir (“man”).^[1]

It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian vãrtos.^[6][7][5] Cihac compared the Romance adjectives of the same origin.^[8] Romanian later borrowed the Latin and Italian words as virtuos and virtuoz.^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where vârtos occurs more than twenty times, the first in Psalm 6.^[3][9] Tiktin also cites it from Neacșu's letter of 1521.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Old texts used the adjective for physical strength and for fortified cities and armies, and figuratively for firm, steadfast people and solid arguments.^[3][2] A foundation could be vârtoasă in 1644, and Cantemir called King Ladislaus braver and stronger than all.^[10] The sense “hard, firm, dense” gave expressions such as vârtos la cap “stubborn”, and of wine it means strong in alcohol.^[4]

As an adverb it means “strongly, with force”;^[2][4][11] Coresi and the Palia used it to intensify adjectives, “very”, and mai vârtos became “especially, all the more”.^[2][4][11] The 17th-century lexicons gloss vârtos with Slavonic паче “more, rather”.^[12] Today the adjective is popular or old; the neologism virtuos carries the sense of virtue.^[3][5]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – vîrtos in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3][9]
• 1521 – in Neacșu's letter.^[10]
• 1644 – temelie vârtoasă “a firm foundation” in a book of homilies.^[10]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – more than a hundred times in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Strong, vigorous, robust.^[4][3][1]
2. Hard, firm, dense, solid: ou vârtos “hard-boiled egg”;^[4][11] vârtos la cap “stubborn”.^[4][11]
3. Of wine: strong, high in alcohol.^[4]

Adverb

1. With force, strongly, hard.^[4]
2. mai vârtos: especially, all the more.^[4][11]

Word family

• vârtoșie

Related words

• vârtute
• virtuos
• virtuoz
• Aromanian vãrtos

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vîrtos
3. ^ 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, 1442
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1189
5. ^ 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. vîrtute
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1118
7. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 1079
8. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 317
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 6:3
10. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vârtos
11. ^ a b c d e Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1416
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. vârtos
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. vîrtos
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ieșirea 10:19