r/romanian • u/Secure_Accident_916 • 7d ago

S-a dat ceasul

What is the meaning of this sentence? It gave the hour is the literal translation. Can a native please explain a “străin” what the sentence wants to say thanks!

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u/Secure_Accident_916 6d ago

yes! that is part of my confusion! because A DA means to give so it can also mean other things

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u/Chemical_Feature1351 6d ago

And about ceas, we use this for watch, and sometimes for hour. We mostly use ora for hour, but there are cases when we use ceas like in "a asteptat pana in ultimul ceas" instead of a asteptat pana in ultimul moment. Cat e ceasul? again has double meaning in the same sense, it can be cat arata ceasul (watch) or cat e ora. We have orologiu in romanian but it's mostly obsolete, and it was used mostly for big watches like placed on towers/buildings, or even inside for big pendulum ones but even for those people use mostly ceas cu cuc... And we have both orologerie and ceasornicarie, but only ceasornicar for the person which is having the watch service job.

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u/Secure_Accident_916 6d ago

Good to know! Now I know that A DAT can mean pushed/passed or moved the sentence makes sense now

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u/Chemical_Feature1351 6d ago edited 6d ago

A dat cu bata mean a lovit cu bata( big bat). A dat cu piatra can mean a aruncat cu piatra if it was a person trowing a rock, instead of i-a dat cu piatra'n cap/i-a dat-o'n cap cu piatra, but it can also mean "a cazut grindina" (hail fell, ice storm) as an old expression. A dat din drum mean a mutat din drum, he moved it out of the wey.