fãrã

Forms

fãrã^[1]

• Other spellings: fere in Wiktionary;^[1] fără in Mihăileanu's Romanian-based spelling;^[2] FĂ'RĂ in Papahagi's dictionary;^[3] φἄρᾶ in the Greek script of Nikolaidis, who transcribes it fără and also prints the elided φἄρ᾽ before ντὶ.^[4]
• Pascu lists fără from Nikolaidis, Papahagi's tales, Mihăileanu, Obedenaru, Boiagi and Papahagi's other texts.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin forās (“out of doors, outside”),^[3][5][1] an adverb that Latin also used as a preposition.^[6] Candrea and Densusianu explain the change of o to ă as regular, since the word is unstressed in the sentence.^[7]

The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian fără, Megleno-Romanian fắră (also făr and for) and Istro-Romanian făr de.^{[8][9][10][11]} Ciorănescu adds that the Romanian variant făr could continue forīs (“outside”), the locative form.^[8] Further west the Latin word survives with its old sense "outside": Italian fuori, French hors, Spanish fuera and Portuguese fora;^[12] REW glosses only the Romanian descendant as "without".^[12]

De Vaan explains forās and forīs as the accusative and locative plural of an ā-stem noun "door", so that they first meant "to the door" and "at the door"; they belong to forēs (“folding doors”), from Proto-Italic *fworā- and the root noun Proto-Indo-European *dʰuōr (“door”), which also gave Ancient Greek θύρα (thúra, “door”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pascu's sources, the oldest of them Boiagi's grammar of 1813, give the word as a preposition meaning "without" and "except".^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the Latin sense "outside", which the western languages keep, the Eastern Romance word went over to "without", the absence of something.^[12][8] In Aromanian it also means "except, save", and as a conjunction "but".^[1][3] Cunia records the phrase fãrã di-altã "without doubt, certainly", and compounds such as fãrã-cali and fãrã-di-leadzi for a kind of sacrilege.^[14]

Timeline

• 1813 – fără in Boiagi's grammar, as cited by Pascu.^[5]
• 1901 – fără “without” in Mihăileanu's dictionary.^[2]
• 1909 – φἄρᾶ (fără) “without, except” in Nikolaidis's dictionary.^[4]

Meanings

Preposition

1. Without.^[1][14][3]
2. Except, save.^[1][3]
3. (conjunction) But.^[1]

Related words

• afoarã
• Romanian fără

Usage notes

The noun farã "tribe, kin" is a separate word: Papahagi compares it with Modern Greek φάρα (fára) and Albanian farë.^[15][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 186
3. ^ a b c d e Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 543
4. ^ a b Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 564
5. ^ a b c d Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 84
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
8. ^ a b c Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
9. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 159
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 125
11. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 218
12. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b c Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)
15. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 540