arājs

Latvian
Arājs

Etymology

Apparently a mixture of arējs (“(temporary) plowman”) and an unattested form *artājs, from art (“to plow”) +‎ -ājs. Cognates include Proto-Slavic *ortajь (archaic Russian ратай (rataj), Old Church Slavonic ра́тай (rátaj)).[1]

Noun

arājs m (1st declension)

  1. plowman (person who plows the land (with a horse-drawn plow)
    arājs stingri turēja arklu ― the plowman firmly held the plow
    arājs nāca tīrumā art ― the plowman came to the field to plow
    arājs ara un gani ganīja ― the plowman plows and the shepherds tend (the sheep)

Usage notes

The difference between arājs and arējs seems to be that arājs describes a profession, a permanent way of life, whereas arējs refers to someone (or some animal) who happens to be plowing now.

Declension
Declension of arājs (1st declension)
singular (vienskaitlis) plural (daudzskaitlis)
nominative (nominatīvs) arājs arāji
accusative (akuzatīvs) arāju arājus
genitive (ģenitīvs) arāja arāju
dative (datīvs) arājam arājiem
instrumental (instrumentālis) arāju arājiem
locative (lokatīvs) arājā arājos
vocative (vokatīvs) arāj arāji

Synonyms

References
  1. Karulis, Konstantīns (1992) “art”, in Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca (in Latvian), Rīga: AVOTS, →ISBN
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