femeie

Romanian

Alternative forms

• fămeaiă, fămeie — archaic
• fomeie, fimeie — Moldavia (region)

Etymology

Inherited from Latin familia (“family”). The old sense of "family" in Romanian is now mostly lost, replaced by the neologism familie. Compare Aromanian fumealji, which retained the sense of "family". Despite the phonetic and semantic similarities, is unrelated to Latin femella, and it is improbable that this word influenced the development of the meaning in modern Romanian because the older forms of femeie did not have the sense of woman and the other Romanian/Eastern Romance languages don't have this sense either. It is also unrelated to Latin femina, which produced some apparent "cognates" in the Western Romance languages that only share superficial similarities. For a similar semantic development, see Albanian fëmijë.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [fe.ˈme.je]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eje
• Hyphenation: fe‧me‧ie

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

femeie f (plural femei)

1. woman
2. married woman, wife
3. (obsolete) family
   • 1693, Floarea Darurilor:

     Lot, ieși cu muiarea ta și cu fămeaia ta afară din cetate.

     Lot, exit with your wife and your family outside the city.

Declension

Declension of femeie

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(o) femeie	femeia	(niște) femei	femeile
genitive/dative	(unei) femei	femeii	(unor) femei	femeilor
vocative	femeie, femeio		femeilor

Synonyms

• muiere, doamnă

Related terms

• femeiesc
• familie

See also

• bărbat

Further reading

• femeie in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)