om

Forms

om m (plural oaminj)^[1]

• Plural oaminj.^[1][2]
• Other spellings: OM, plural oámin’ĭ, in Papahagi's dictionary;^[3] om, plural oamin’, in Pascu;^[4] om, plural oâmini, in Dalametra.^[5]
• Regional forms: om, definite ómlu or ómu, in the atlas of the Aromanian dialects.^[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin homō (“human being, man”), and its plural continues the Latin plural hominēs.^[3][4][7][1] The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian om, Megleno-Romanian uom and Istro-Romanian om, plural ómir.^[8][7][9] Further west it gave Italian uomo, French homme, Spanish hombre and Portuguese homem.^[8][10] Unlike on, the Romanian word never became an impersonal pronoun.^[7]

The older Latin form was hemō, from Proto-Italic *hemō;^[1] de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *dʰǵʰ(e)m-ōn (“earthling, human”), the word for earth with a suffix.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kavalliotis's word list of 1770 has it as the translation of Modern Greek ἄνθρωπος (ánthropos, “human being”);^[12] Meyer equates the form with Romanian om.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense of a human being is the main one.^[2][3] As in other languages, the word also means a man in particular, and Cunia lists the figurative senses of a husband, a young man, a good man and a rich man.^[2] Papahagi quotes the proverb ómlu cu minte acúmpără, nu vínde (the wise man buys, he does not sell),^[3] and Cunia the phrase om cu trei scãnduri (a man with three boards), a man not right in the head.^[2] In the dialect atlas the word also names the pupil of the eye and the uvula, the latter as the man of the throat;^[6] Candrea and Densusianu record the uvula sense too.^[13] Pascu lists the derivative oamă, an old woman.^[4]

Timeline

• 1770 – the translation of ἄνθρωπος “human being” in Kavalliotis's word list.^[12]
• 1906 – om “man” in Dalametra's dictionary.^[5]
• 1925 – Pascu derives it from Latin homo.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A human being, a person.^[2][3][4][1]
2. A man.^[2][1]
3. (figurative) A husband, a young man, a good or a rich man.^[2]
4. (regional) The pupil of the eye.^[6]
5. (regional) The uvula.^[6][13]

Related words

• Romanian om

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 775
3. ^ a b c d e Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 806
4. ^ a b c d e 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, 136
5. ^ a b Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 161
6. ^ a b c d Saramandu, Nicolae (2023), Glosar aromân, Fonetică și dialectologie XLII: 103–176, p. 153
7. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ a b Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
9. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c 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. 18
13. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București