veac

Forms

veac n (plural veacuri)^[1] The old and popular variant vac (plural vacuri) occurs in Miron Costin: „Vacul tău n-are pace, Zavistnice oame” “your life has no peace, envious man”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic вѣкъ (věkŭ, “age, eternity”), the Slavonic word named by Ciorănescu, MDA2, the DEX, the DLR and Wiktionary.^{[4][3][5][2][1]} Ciorănescu follows Cihac and compares Bulgarian век (vek) and Russian век (vek).^[4][6] The Slavonic word rendered Ancient Greek αἰών (aiṓn) and is common in the Gospels and the Psalter.^[7][8] It continues Proto-Slavic *věkъ, which Vasmer relates to Lithuanian viẽkas (“strength, life”);^[7][1] Wiktionary derives both from Proto-Indo-European *weyk- (“to overcome”).^[7][1]

It is also found south of the Danube, as Megleno-Romanian veac “age; life, youth”.^[4][9] Ciorănescu derives vecie “eternity” and vecui “to live” from it, and veșnic “eternal” from the related adjective вѣчьнъ (věčĭnŭ) with the suffix -nic.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, which has the word and its articled forms, as veacului in Psalm 9:5.^[10][3] Tiktin's first source is the Codicele Voronețean.^[11] In these church texts it means the present age or world, set against the life after death, and eternity itself.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The DLR's oldest senses are the length and course of a person's life and, in church language, veacul acesta “this world”, the earthly life set against the one after death.^[2][3] Coresi writes of chipul veacului acestuia “the fashion of this world”, and den începutul veacului “from the beginning of the world”.^[2] Tiktin's quotations use it for a long era, such as the reign of a prince, and for the end of the ages.^[11] In Old Church Slavonic too the word meant both a lifetime and eternity.^[12]

Today the main sense is “a hundred years, century”, beside a long or seemingly long time, as in veacul de mijloc “the Middle Ages” and veac de aur “golden age”.^[5] The plural veci means eternity, in de veci “eternal” and pe veci “for ever”; in negative sentences în veci means “never”.^[5] The popular sense “life, existence” lives on in a-și face veacul “to spend one's life”.^[5] Regionally it also means the weather: in Hațeg Densusianu recorded it for bad, rainy weather.^[5][13]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – veacului in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[10][3]
• c. 1551–1558 – veac in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[14]
• 1570 – veac in Coresi's psalter.^[15]
• 1649 – veac in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[16]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses it more than 360 times.^[17]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it “life span”, “a hundred years” and “eternity”.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A century, a period of a hundred years.^[5][3]
2. A long period, or one that seems long; an age, an era: veacul de mijloc “the Middle Ages”.^[5]
3. (regional) The weather.^[5][13]
4. (plural veci) Eternity: pe veci “for ever”.^[5]
5. (popular) Life, existence: a-și face veacul “to spend one's life”.^[5]

Word family

• vecie
• veșnic
• veșnicie
• vecui

Related words

• Old Church Slavonic вѣкъ (věkŭ)
• Megleno-Romanian veac

Usage notes

The two plurals divide the senses: veacuri for centuries and ages, the masculine veci for eternity, as in în vecii vecilor “for ever and ever”.^[5][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. veac
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, 1444
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. veac
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1189
6. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 452
7. ^ a b c Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
8. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
9. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 324
10. ^ 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 9:5
11. ^ 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. veac
12. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 1, 129
13. ^ a b Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 341
14. ^ 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 110:7
15. ^ 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 5:13
16. ^ 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. veac
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 13:18
18. ^ 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. 746
19. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1396