rumân

See also: ruman, rumãn, rumän, and Rumän

Romanian

Alternative forms

• rumîn (old orthography)

Etymology

Inherited from Latin rōmānus (later modified into the modern form, român, to reflect the Latin etymology). As this now obsolete form of the word was mostly used before the language's orthographic reform and shifting of script to the current Latin-based one, it would have been represented mostly with the old Romanian Cyrillic alphabet. The sense of "serf" or "peasant" arose in what is now southern Romania as many of the common people came to be tied to the land as part of a feudal system; however, according to Julien Havet, the nuance of relative social inferiority tied to the notion of romanus also seems to have appeared in some form as far back as Merovingian Frankish law in Western Europe after the Germanic conquests (despite this then changing under Charlemagne as the term became used to instead grant legitimacy), although it may have been an independent or unrelated later development in Romanian. Indeed, in the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine rulers still styled themselves as Romans, using the name Ρωμαίος (Romaíos) in Greek throughout their history in the Middle Ages.

Compare Aromanian armãn, Istro-Romanian rumăr, Albanian rëmër (“Wallachian; shepard”). Compare also the designations of some other Romance speakers for their languages, such as Romansch rumantsch, Old French romanz, as well as Ladin ladin, Ladino ladino. The Romanian word also has a neological doublet, roman, which was borrowed later.

Noun

rumân m (plural rumâni)

1. (archaic, obsolete) Romanian (person)

   Synonym: român

2. (obsolete, Muntenia) peasant or serf working the land
3. (archaic, obsolete, popular) husband, man in general

Usage notes

While this form is now rarely if at all in use in Romania (some older dictionaries mention a few regional dialects using it), some Vlach communities in eastern and northern Serbia still use it to describe themselves, along with some derived adjectives and adverbs.

Synonyms

• (peasant): țăran; (serf): șerb, iobag, vecin
• (husband): soț; (man): om, persoană

Derived terms

• rumânesc (obsolete)
• rumânește / rumâneșce (obsolete)
• Țeara Rumânească (obsolete)

Descendants

• → Russian: румын (rumyn)