The word is commonly assumed to derive from Mongolic, see Mongolian сувай (suvaj, “sterile, barren”). Cognate with Kyrgyz субай (subay, “barren animal”), Yakut субай (subay, “barren animal; animals to be slaughtered”); Chagatai (subay, “unladen; single; light cavalry”). The sense 'bachelor; childless' occurs in Turkish dialects as well, possibly as a borrowing from Azerbaijani.[1]
According to Doerfer, the word underwent the following semantic developments in (primarily) Central Asian Turkic languages: 'barren'→ 'unattached, not married' → 'light cavalry (unattached, unburdened by load)'; he then attributes Turkish subay (“officer”) to a semantic narrowing of an unattested sense '*light cavalry officer'.[2] However, neither Azerbaijani nor Ottoman Turkish have the sense 'officer'.
Alternatively, the Turkish subay (“officer”) was coined as a replacement for Ottoman Turkish ضابط (“zâbit”) during the Turkish language reform,[3] in which case the coinage was a misinterpretation of Chagatai (subay) as a compound cognate with Old Turkic 𐰾𐰇 (s²ü, “army; spearmen; heavily armed pedestrian or horsemen”)[4] and Old Turkic 𐰋𐰏 (b²g, “lord”).[5]
subay (definite accusative subayı, plural subaylar)
| Declension of subay | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | plural | |||||||
| nominative | subay |
subaylar | ||||||
| definite accusative | subayı |
subayları | ||||||
| dative | subaya |
subaylara | ||||||
| locative | subayda |
subaylarda | ||||||
| ablative | subaydan |
subaylardan | ||||||
| definite genitive | subayın |
subayların | ||||||
subay (comparative daha subay, superlative ən subay)
subay
Probably from a misinterpretation of Chagatai (subay, “light cavalry”) as a compound cognate with Old Turkic 𐰾𐰇 (s²ü, “army; spearmen; heavily armed pedestrian or horsemen”) and Old Turkic 𐰋𐰏 (b²g, “lord”) and thus having the meaning 'army lord', in order to coin a replacement for the Ottoman ضابط (“zâbit”) during Turkish language reform. See more at Azerbaijani subay.
subay (definite accusative subayı, plural subaylar)