zestre

Forms

zestre f (uncountable)^[1] Old texts write zeastră and dzeastră, as the Palia of 1581 in Shechem's offer for Dinah: „Adaoceți la mine zeastrea și ceareți darure” “Add to the dowry you ask of me and ask for gifts”.^[2] The old language used the plural for one bride's dowry, zestrele and zăstruri: „i-au cheltuit toate zestrele ei” “he spent all her dowry” (1633).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dextrae (“solemn pledges”), the plural of dextera (“right hand; pledge”), from dexter (“right”): the pledge given by the right hand.^[4][3][1] Ciorănescu names Hasdeu, Pușcariu, Iordan, the REW, Tiktin and Candrea for this etymology.^[5] Scriban explains the sense by the right hands of the two parties to an agreement.^[6]

Cihac first proposed a source related to Latin instaurō (“to renew”), then compared Old Church Slavonic застроити (zastroiti, “to prepare”),^[7] a link Ciorănescu calls improbable.^[5]

The word is not used in the Banat or Crișana.^[5] It passed into neighbouring languages: Bulgarian зестра (zéstra), Ukrainian, Hungarian zeszter and Transylvanian Saxon.^[5][1] The Bulgarian etymological dictionary takes the Bulgarian word from Romanian with reservations, notes Mladenov's alternative from Bulgarian зет (zet, “son-in-law”), and says Aromanian zestră came from Bulgarian.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581, in the story of Dinah.^[3][9][2] There, as in the old law codes, it is the property a bride brings to her marriage, which she takes back if the couple separates.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The sense has always centred on the bride's property; in the narrower sense it is the clothes, linen and bedding she brings to the new house, kept in a ladă de zestre “dowry chest” and listed in a foaie de zestre, the written record of the dowry.^[3] The 17th-century homilies use it figuratively: hospitality is „zestrea cea mare” “the great dowry”.^[9] It also named what a nun brings into a convent.^[4] From the 19th century it was extended to the fittings and equipment of a business, and to the assets of a community or institution.^[9][4]

A proverb says that a wife's dowry is not lost even in water: the husband must always answer for it.^[9]

Timeline

• 1581 – zeastrea in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[3][2]
• 1633 – the plural zestrele for a single dowry.^[2]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]
• 1765 – the plural zăstruri.^[2]
• 1801 – glossed with Latin dos in Klein's dictionary.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. dowry: the property, movable or immovable, given to a girl when she marries: A primit o casă de zestre. “She got a house as her dowry.”^[4][1]
2. In a narrower sense, a bride's trousseau: clothes, linen, rugs, pillows.^[3]
3. The property a nun brings when she enters a convent.^[4]
4. (colloquial) All the goods someone owns.^[4]
5. The assets of a community or institution; inventory, equipment.^[4][3]

Word family

• înzestra

Related words

• Bulgarian зестра (zéstra)

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. zestre
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, 1564
4. ^ 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. 1223
5. ^ 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. zestre
6. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1438
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 472
8. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 1, 636
9. ^ 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. zestre
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Joshua 16:10
11. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 467