rumânie
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Romanian[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Noun[edit]
rumânie f (uncountable)
- (historical) serfdom (of Romanian peasants)
Usage notes[edit]
- The term undertook a semantic shift from "(a) group/collectivity of Romanians" to "(a) group/collectivity of Romanian (feudal) peasants", in a similar vein to how the Russian word крестьянин changed its meaning from Christian to peasant. Therefore, rumânie (and by extension, rumân with a u) bore feudal, low-class connotations. As a consequence, by the 19th century, the român variant (рѡмѫн in Romanian Cyrillic) gradually monopolized ethnic self-identification, whereas rumân (рꙋмѫн in Romanian Cyrillic) retained a feudal, class-related meaning and thus fell out of fashion (though other factors also had a role in the process).