As I’m going to the Polyglot Conference in Novi Sad (Нови Сад) [nôʋiː sâːd] in October, I thought I should find out what Novi Sad actually means – it’s the kind of thing I like to know. I guessed that Novi probably means new, but had no idea what Sad might mean.
According to this dictionary, нови means new and сад means ‘plantation’.
Wikipedia translates the name as ‘New Garden’, and gives versions of the name in a number of languages used in local administration:
– Serbian: Нови Сад, Novi Sad
– Hungarian: Újvidék (‘new territory/region/land’)
– Slovak: Nový Sad
– Rusyn: Нови Сад (Novi Sad)
In Latin it’s known as Neoplanta, and as Novi Sad in Croatian and Romanian.
The word сад / sad comes from the Proto-Slavic *saditi (to plant), and means vessel, container or dish in Macedonian; garden, orchard or park in Russian and Ukrainian; orchard in Czech and Polish; fruit in Lower Sorbian; and garden, orchard or plantation in Slovak.
Sources: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/сад and http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sad
Connected with set and sit? ‘To set’ can be used in English in the sense of ‘to plant’ or ‘to sow’.
Seeing as how I was born in Novi Sad and know its history well, I can tell you with 100% certainty what word ‘sad’ means, since it is also a common Serbian and Slovak word (my two native languages). The word ‘sad’ means an ‘orchard’ or more precisely a ‘plantation’. From it the derived verb is ‘saditi’/’sadiť’ which means ‘to plant’.
http://www.etymonline.com doesn’t suggest any connection with set or sit, but a connection seems more likely with seed and sow.