sieva - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

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sieva (plural sievas)

  1. A small variety of lima bean.
    Synonym: sieva bean

Vīrs un sieva

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *śéiwāˀ, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱéy-wos, from *ḱey- (“be located; camp, settlement; friendly; from the same home”) with a suffix -wā (from the same stem also Latvian saime (“household”)). The semantic change seems to have been “friendly settlement or household member” > “woman”. Cognate with Sanskrit शेव (śéva, “dear, friendly, honored”), Gothic 𐌷𐌴𐌹𐍅𐌰-𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌿𐌾𐌰 (heiwa-frauja, “master of the house”), Old High German hiwa (“wife”), hi(w)o (“spouse; servant”), Latin civis (“citizen”) (previously “household member”, “villager”). As Latvian sieva gradually shifted its basic meaning to “wife”, a new term sieviete (“woman”) was coined (in the 19th century).[1]

IPA(key): [sīɛ̄va]

sieva f (4th declension)

  1. wife (married woman; woman with respect to her husband)
    vīrs un sieva ― husband and wife
    nolūkot sievu ― to look for a wife
    ņemt, apņemt sievu ― to take a wife (= to get married)
    sievas vecāki ― wife's parents
    viņa jau divus gadus ir sieva ― she has been a wife for two years
    viņam nav sievas ― he doesn't have a wife
  2. woman
    sievu koris ― **women'**s choir
    tirgus sieva ― market woman (who sells at the market)
    istabā ienāca kāda sieva ― some woman came into the room
  1. ^ Karulis, Konstantīns (1992), “sieva”, in Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca [Latvian Etymological Dictionary]‎[1] (in Latvian), Rīga: AVOTS, →ISBN