Etymologically

Etymology and origin of the Aromanian word pãnã

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1813 Boiagi's grammar, as cited by Pascu
Inherited from
Latin paene
Ultimate origin
Latin paene
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin paene
Aromanian pãnã
From the same root
English peninsula ← paene
Latin paeninsula ← paene

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

  1. Until, up to: marks the time or the place where something stops or arrives.[2][3][6]

Conjunction

  1. Till, until.[1]
  • 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

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 989
  4. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 955
  5. ^ a b Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 167
  6. ^ a b c d Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 394
  7. ^ a b c Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 404
  8. ^ 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
  9. ^ a b Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 213
  10. ^ 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)
  11. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 116
  12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  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. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 782
  15. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 943
  16. ^ 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

  • featã · also from Latin
  • cu · also from Latin
  • cã · also from Latin
  • tu · also from Latin
  • shi · also from Latin
  • di · also from Latin
  • am · also from Latin
  • yin · also from Latin
Cite this entry

“Pãnã.” Etymologically, 26 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/rup/p%C3%A3n%C3%A3. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·