zbura

Forms

zbura (third-person singular present zboară, past participle zburat, third-person subjunctive zboare), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *exvolō (“to fly out”), formed from Latin ex- (“out”) and volō (“to fly”).^{[2][3][4][1][5][6]} The verb survives south of the Danube as Aromanian azboair.^[4][7] The REW finds the same formation in svolare of Old Italian and in Rhaeto-Romance.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first found in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, at Psalm 90:6 and 103:30.^[8] Tiktin quotes Psalm 90:6 from the Psaltirea Scheiană, where the reader is told not to fear „de săgeate ce zboară zua” “arrows that fly by day”.^[6] MDA2's first record is Coresi's book of homilies of 1581, on bees: „Cum zboară acealea pre câmpure” “how they fly over the fields”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides birds and insects, the verb early described anything that moves fast through the air, and by extension a horse or a person that races along.^[6][9] The transitive use “to send flying” gave a zbura cuiva capul “to cut off someone's head” and a-și zbura creierii “to shoot oneself”.^[6][9] Aircraft brought the senses “to fly a plane” and “to travel by air”.^[9]

In colloquial use a zbura pe cineva is to dismiss someone from a post, and in school slang to expel a pupil or student.^[9][10] Regional reflexive uses say that an illness passes or that a child grows up.^[2] Ciorănescu lists the Romanian derivatives zbor “flight”, zburător “flying”, also the name of an evil spirit, and zburătăci “to learn to fly; to leave the nest”.^[4]

Timeline

• early 16th century – zboară and zbura in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8]
• 1581 – zboară in Coresi's book of homilies.^[2][3]
• 1649 – zboară in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – zburând “flying” in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of birds and insects, to fly; to fly off.^[9][2]
2. Of things, to float or be carried through the air; to fly through the air when thrown or fired.^[9]
3. Of aircraft, to fly; of people, to travel by air.^[9][2]
4. (figurative) To rush, to race along; of time, to fly by.^[9]
5. (transitive, figurative) To knock off or tear away: a zbura cuiva capul “to cut off someone's head”.^[9][6]
6. (colloquial) In a zbura pe cineva: to dismiss someone from a job;^[9][10] (slang) to expel a pupil or student.^[9][10]
7. (regional, reflexive) Of an illness, to pass; of a child, to grow.^[2]

Word family

• zbor
• zburător
• zburătăci
• zburătură

Related words

• Aromanian azboair
• Latin volō

Usage notes

The word was formerly spelled sbura, the headword in Ciorănescu's dictionary, and a regional form is zbora.^[2][4] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet it was written збура.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1554
3. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. zbura
4. ^ a b c d e 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. sbura
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3115
6. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. zbura
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 185
8. ^ 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 90:6
9. ^ 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. 1220
10. ^ a b c Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. zbura
11. ^ 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. zboară
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 1:20