Etymology and origin of the Aromanian word pãnã
From the same root
Forms
pãnã[1]
- Short forms pãn and pen.[1][2]
- Other spellings: PÎ’NĂ, with the short form pín’, and PA’NA, PAN’ in Papahagi's dictionary;[3][4] pînă in Dalametra's dictionary;[5] până in Mihăileanu's Romanian-based spelling;[6] πᾶνᾶ and πᾶν in Nikolaidis's Greek script, which he transcribes pana and pân.[7]
- Pascu's sources write pin, pănă and pân, and Boiagi's grammar pănu (OCR pänu).[8]
Etymology
It is inherited from Latin paene (“almost”) followed by ad (“to”), as Pascu, Wiktionary and Capidan explain it.[8][1][9] Pascu assumes that the Latin adverb went from "almost" to "near", as prope (“near; almost”) did in Romanian aproape.[8] Nikolaidis gives the same etymon after Weigand and names Cihac's per (“through”) with the same preposition, which he finds doubtful.[7] Papahagi's dictionary leaves the origin with a question mark.[3]
The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian până, Megleno-Romanian pănă and pon, and Istro-Romanian pire and pir.[10][9] Ciorănescu takes the derivation from Latin as probable but finds the development unclear, and rejects Vulgar Latin *pro ad.[10] Pușcariu doubted this etymon: he thought that the Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian forms with î and o point rather to porrō (“further”) followed by the same preposition.[11]
The Oxford Latin Dictionary calls the origin of the Latin adverb unknown.[12] De Vaan takes the basic sense of its stem to be "missing, lacking" and finds the Indo-European comparisons proposed for it phonetically difficult.[13]
Earliest recorded meaning
The oldest record is the form pănu that Pascu quotes from Boiagi's grammar of 1813, meaning "until".[8]
Semantic evolution
From a Latin phrase meaning "almost to", the word came to mark the limit of a stretch of time or space, "until, up to".[8][2] Mihăileanu records până măne "until tomorrow" and până vine "until he comes",[6] and Papahagi quotes lúngă pi’nă mpáde "long down to the ground".[3] Wiktionary also lists it as a conjunction, "till, until".[1]
Timeline
- 1813 – pănu “until” in Boiagi's grammar, as Pascu cites it.[8]
- 1901 – până “until” in Mihăileanu's dictionary.[6]
- 1906 – pînă in Dalametra's dictionary.[5]
- 1909 – Nikolaidis derives it from Latin paene ad.[7]
Meanings
Preposition
Conjunction
Related words
- Romanian până
Usage notes
Cunia's panã "mop" and Papahagi's PÁNĂ "rag; film over the eyes", which Pascu and Papahagi derive from Latin *panna, are a different word.[14][15][16]
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 797
- ^ a b c d Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 989
- ^ Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 955
- ^ a b Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 167
- ^ a b c d Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 394
- ^ a b c Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 404
- ^ 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, 144
- ^ a b Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 213
- ^ 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)
- ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 116
- ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
- ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 782
- ^ Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 943
- ^ 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, 138
Related etymologies
Cite this entry
“Pãnã.” Etymologically, 26 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/rup/p%C3%A3n%C3%A3. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
Last edited on . ·