Romanian words from Hungarian
15 Romanian words with Hungarian in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
baie
1. The word for “bath” is inherited from Vulgar Latin *bannea, a form of balnea, originally the plural of balneum (“bath”), with /ln/ assimilated to /nn/ as in the other Romance languages. DELR…
ban
1. The origin of the word for money and coin is disputed, and DEX calls it unknown. DELR and Tiktin think it most likely the title of homograph 2, applied to the coins struck in the 13th century by…
căprar
1. The word for the goatherd is inherited from Latin caprārius (“goatherd”). The Latin noun is formed on caper (“goat”) with the suffix -ārius, and Varro and Columella already use it for a goatherd…
fel
It is borrowed from Hungarian -féle (“kind of, -like”), a Hungarian suffix found in words such as mindenféle (“of every kind”). Wiktionary also names the Hungarian noun fél (“part, half”). Tamás…
gând
It is borrowed from Hungarian gond (“care, worry”). The DA says only that it comes from a word of the same origin as the Hungarian one. The Hungarian word is recorded from about 1372 with the sense…
gândi
It is formed from Romanian gând + -i, from the noun gând “thought”. The noun is from Hungarian gond (“care, worry”), which is recorded in Hungarian from the 14th century and also meant “thought” in…
întâlni
It is formed from Romanian în- + tâlni, the base being the old verb “to meet”, from Hungarian talál (“to find, to meet”), taken through the infinitive találni as other verbs of Hungarian origin…
locui
It is borrowed from Hungarian lakik (“to dwell, to inhabit”), a Hungarian loan. The regular Romanian form was lăcui, now obsolete; it was later drawn towards loc “place”, which gave the present…
mereu
Its origin is disputed. Tamás lists it among the Hungarian elements of Romanian: borrowed from Hungarian merő (“rigid, fixed”). DEX, MDA2 and the DLR compare the Hungarian word without deciding…
must
It is inherited from Latin mustum (“new wine, must”). Candrea and Densusianu give the same etymon. It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian mustu and Megleno-Romanian most. Albanian mušt is also…
oraș
It is borrowed from Hungarian város (“town, city”). Miklosich and Cihac gave this etymology. Tamás lists the later literature. The Hungarian word is a derivative of vár (“castle, fortress”) with the…
pa
It is borrowed from Hungarian pá (“bye”), perhaps also borrowed from German pa, the Viennese children's word. DEX, MDA2, NODEX and Wikționar name both, the DLR compares both, and Wiktionary gives…
seamă
It is borrowed from Hungarian szám (“number, count”). Tamás reviews the history of the question: Miklosich already took it as Hungarian, others thought of a Russian or even an Ancient Greek source…
suci
It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic соукати (sukati, “to twist, to spin”), a borrowing from the Slavonic of the church and chancery. MDA2 also names the form соучы (sučy). Ciorănescu gives the…
tău
1. The word for a pond or mountain lake is borrowed from Hungarian tó (“lake, pond”). Cihac and Tiktin already gave this source. It belongs to the Hungarian layer of Transylvania and Moldavia, where…