vrajă

Forms

vrajă f (plural vrăji)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic вража (vraža, “divination, spell”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Cihac glosses the Slavonic noun as “divination, incantation”.^[6] It goes back to Proto-Slavic *voržь; Serbo-Croatian vraža is a cognate.^[1] The Bulgarian dialects have a related verb Bulgarian вража (vraža, “to divine, to heal by charms”).^[7] Scriban and Șăineanu traced the Slavonic word to a verb meaning “to mutter”, and compare vraci “healer”.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and MDA2 date the first record to 1563, in Coresi's Praxiu.^[3][4] In Moxa's chronicle, in the story of Troy, „aruncară vraje” “they cast spells” and learned that courage alone would not take the city: the word meant a magic act or rite.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts vrajă is mostly the sorcery the Church condemned: Mardarie's lexicon of 1649 uses it for a Slavonic word for magic, the 1688 Bible for the divination of Joseph's cup (Genesis 44:15) and in the laws against soothsayers, and a manuscript of 1692 speaks of „închinarea idolilor cu vrăjile și cu farmecile” “the worship of idols with spells and charms”.^[10][11][3] It also meant a charm or incantation and the magic change of things in folk tales.^[4][5]

In the 19th century the word took the figurative sense of fascination, the spell cast by beauty or emotion: Vlahuță writes of feeling in „o lume de vrăji” “a world of enchantment”.^[3][4] In present-day slang a vrajă is smooth talk aimed at seducing or deceiving someone.^[12]

Timeline

• 1563 – the first record, in Coresi's Praxiu.^[3][4]
• 1649 – vraje in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – vrajă and vrăji in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• 1692 – vrăjile beside farmecile in a manuscript on idol worship.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A spell: magic means or rites, and the miraculous change of things they bring about; farmec, vrăjitorie.^[5][4][1]
2. A charm, an incantation; descântec.^[5][4]
3. (figurative) enchantment, the irresistible charm of a place, a person or a feeling: în vrajă “enchanting”.^[5][4]
4. (slang) Sweet talk to win someone over; a trick, a con.^[12][4]

Word family

• vrăjitor
• vrăjitoare
• vrăjitorie
• vrăjeală

Related words

• vrăji
• vraci

Usage notes

The plural is vrăji.^[5][1] The verb vrăji “to bewitch” is a separate borrowing, from the Slavonic verb of the same root.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vrajă
3. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vrajă
4. ^ 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, 1516
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 1208
6. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 464
7. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 1, 179
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1421
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 703
10. ^ 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. vraje
11. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 44:15
12. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. vrajă