Learn Romanian › mal
mal
riverbank /ˈmal/
noun#3289 most common
Also: shore, bank (of a lake), coast
Example sentences
Copilul stă pe mal.
The child is standing on the bank.
Ne plimbăm pe malul râului.
We are walking along the riverbank.
Vara trecută, malul mării era plin de oameni.
Last summer, the seashore was full of people.
Pescarii au ajuns la malul lacului înainte de răsărit.
The fishermen reached the lakeshore before sunrise.
Apele revărsate au distrus casele de pe malul stâng al fluviului.
The floodwaters destroyed the houses on the left bank of the river.
Eroziunea continuă să macine malurile abrupte ale Dunării, punând în pericol satele din apropiere.
Erosion keeps wearing away the steep banks of the Danube, putting nearby villages at risk.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | mal | maluri |
| Genitive | malului | malurilor |
| Accusative | mal | maluri |
| Vocative | mal | maluri |
Word family
malulthe bank/shore
malurilethe banks/shores
mal înaltsteep bank, bluff
pe malon the shore, ashore
Etymology
Mal is one of a small set of Romanian words, along with a hundred or so others, that cannot be traced to Latin, Slavic, or any other known source layer of the language. Linguists link it instead to the pre-Roman substrate once spoken in the region, often called Dacian or Thracian. The strongest evidence is Albanian mal, meaning mountain, which shares the same form and likely the same root. The sense probably started out as raised or steep ground and narrowed in Romanian to the edge of a river or sea.
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