Etymologically
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mari

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Forms

mari (plural mãri or mar)[1]

  • Also mare; plural mãri or mari.[2] Papahagi gives the plural as mări and mari.[3]
  • Other spellings: máre, articled masculine marle or máră, feminine márea, in Mihăileanu's Romanian-based spelling;[4] MARE in Papahagi's dictionary;[3] μάρε (máre), plural mari, in the Greek script of Nikolaidis;[5] mare (Meyer's reading) in Kavalliotis's word list of 1770.[6]
  • Regional forms: Pascu records the Fărșerot feminine mară and the plural mari from Boiagi;[7] Pericle Papahagi has ma mară "bigger" among the Fărșerots;[8] Weigand heard mare, feminine plural mări and mari.[9]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Latin mās, marem (“male”),[3][7][10][11] the idea of size having been linked with that of maleness, as Pascu and Candrea–Densusianu explain it.[7][11] Candrea–Densusianu think the sense was first used of animals, in a pastoral life, and allow an influence of Albanian madh (“big”).[11] Ciorănescu would rather start from the common confusion of being grown up with being big, and notes that the REW rejected the derivation.[10] Wiktionary prefers an irregularly shortened form of maior (“bigger”), a view Nikolaidis also reports.[1][5]

Other proposals are less convincing to Ciorănescu: a pre-Latin word, which Gustav Meyer compared with Old Irish már (“great”), a Celtic word, Old High German mari, and mare (“sea”).[10][6] De Vaan explains the Latin alternation of the long and short vowel by an old ablauting paradigm, Proto-Indo-European *meh₂-(o)s, *mh₂-(e)s-.[12]

The adjective is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian mare, Megleno-Romanian mari and Istro-Romanian mǫre.[10][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Kavalliotis's word list of 1770, where the word, read by Meyer as mare, translates the Greek word for "big".[6]

Semantic evolution

The adjective means big, large or great, and also older in age: Papahagi quotes voľ hiț ma mări di el "you are older than he".[3][14] Of people it means important or famous: om mari is a well-known man, and s-tradzi mari means to act proud.[14][15] In the plural it names the notables or heads of a village.[7][15] Pericle Papahagi also gives the sense strong, powerful.[8] In Megleno-Romanian the word also means old.[13]

Timeline

  • 1770 – mare (Meyer's reading) “big” in Kavalliotis's word list.[6]
  • 1813 – the plural mari in Boiagi's grammar, as Pascu cites it.[7]
  • 1894 – mare “big” in Weigand's glossary.[9]
  • 1901 – máre “big” in Mihăileanu's dictionary.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. big, large, great.[1][14][3]
  2. Older; grown up.[3][2]
  3. Important, famous (om mari, a well-known man).[2][15]
  4. (plural, as a noun) The notables, heads of a village.[7][15]
  5. Strong, powerful.[8]
  • Romanian mare

Usage notes

Cunia's mari or mare "sea" is a variant of amari.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 613
  3. ^ a b c d e f Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 656
  4. ^ a b Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 279
  5. ^ a b Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 280
  6. ^ a b c d Meyer, Gustav (1895), Albanesische Studien IV: Das griechisch-südrumänisch-albanesische Wörterverzeichnis des Kavalliotis, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, phil.-hist. Classe 132, p. 83
  7. ^ a b c d e f 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, 113
  8. ^ a b c Papahagi, Pericle (1905), Basme aromâne și glosar, București: Academia Română, p. 634
  9. ^ a b Weigand, Gustav (1894), Die Aromunen: ethnographisch-philologisch-historische Untersuchungen, vol. II: Volksliteratur der Aromunen (with a glossary), Leipzig: J. A. Barth, p. 316
  10. ^ 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)
  11. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
  12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  13. ^ a b Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 183
  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. ^ a b c d Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 127