Originally possibly Vulgar Latin, from Latin extra, whence the synonymous Romanian stră-,[1] regularly reflected in the archaic form shtër-. The modern form in s- might have arose by influence of Proto-Slavic *stàrъ (“old”), especially given sense 3, which is indeed also attested in Romanian, as for example in stră-bunic (“great-grandfather”), but not in other Romance cognates.
stër-
- super-, over-, ultra-
- stër- + i madh (“big”) → i stërmadh (“very big”)
- general intensifier.
- stër- + dhëmb (“tooth”) → stërdhëmb (“crooked tooth”)
- stër- + qokë (“brood hen”) → stërqokë (“jackdaw”)
- augments kinship terms by one generation. great-
- stër- + gjysh (“grandfather”) → stërgjysh (“great-grandfather”)
- ^ Meyer, G. (1891) “štεr-”, in Etymologisches Wörterbuch der albanesischen Sprache [Etymological Dictionary of the Albanian Language] (in German), Strasbourg: Karl J. Trübner, →DOI, page 416
- Newmark, L., Hubbard, P., Prifti, P. (1982) Standard Albanian: a reference grammar for students, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, § 3.4.2, page 172
- Brian D. Joseph (2010) On Latin (s)tritavus[1], pages 43–46
