people / a crowd
Uncountable in this sense, and treated as singular: lumea vorbește, "people say".
E multă lume.
There are a lot of people.
Ce zice lumea?
What do people say?
#99 · Noun
lume
In Romanian, lume means “people / a crowd”. It’s the #99 most frequently used Romanian word. Below you’ll find how to use it, its forms, real example sentences, and common word pairings.
Meaning & Use
Lume is "world" — but in everyday speech it far more often means "people". E multă lume aici means "there are a lot of people here", and toată lumea means "everybody", not "the whole world". Rank 99, feminine, and the definite lumea is the form that carries almost all of it.
neutraleverybody (toată lumea)
The fixed phrase, and it takes a singular verb: toată lumea știe.
Toată lumea știe.
Everybody knows.
Bună dimineața, toată lumea!
Good morning, everyone!
world
The planet or the sphere of life. Countable in the plural: alte lumi, "other worlds".
în toată lumea
all over the world
lumea modernă
the modern world
in the world (as an intensifier)
din lume and de pe lume strengthen a superlative: cel mai bun din lume.
cel mai bun din lume
the best in the world
Forms you’ll actually hear
Ranked by how often each form shows up in spoken Romanian. The top 2 forms cover about 89% of everyday use — learn these first.
lumea66%
lume24%
Show 4 more forms
lumii9%
lumi2%
lumilor<1%
lumile<1%
Noun Forms
- Gender
- feminine
- Countability
- both
| singular indefinite | lume | |
|---|---|---|
| singular definite | lumea | |
| plural indefinite | lumi | |
| plural definite | lumile | |
| genitive dative singular | lumii | |
| genitive dative plural | lumilor |
A regular feminine noun in -e: lume, lumea, lumi, lumile, genitive-dative lumii. The plural is only used for "worlds" in the literal sense (alte lumi) — in the "people" sense the noun has no plural at all, which is why lumi and lumile barely register in the corpus.
Examples
E multă lume în magazin.
There are a lot of people in the shop.
lume - The "people" sense, uncountable, so multă is feminine singular — never *multe lume.
Toată lumea a plecat.
Everybody left.
lumea - Grammatically singular even though it means many people, so the verb stays a plecat.
Vreau să văd lumea.
I want to see the world.
lumea - The "world" sense. Only the context separates it from "people" — the form is identical.
E cea mai frumoasă țară din lume.
It's the most beautiful country in the world.
lume - After a superlative Romanian uses din, not în. The noun stays bare in this fixed phrase.
Așa e viața și lumea.
That's life and that's the world.
lumea - Both nouns take the definite article where English uses none — the normal Romanian pattern for abstractions.
Problemele lumii sunt multe.
The world's problems are many.
lumii - The genitive lumii carries "of the world" with no separate word.
Lumea usually means "people", not "the world". Lumea vorbește is "people are talking", not "the world speaks", and toată lumea is "everybody". If you genuinely mean the planet, the context has to carry it — în toată lumea, "all over the world".
In expressions
Common phrases built around lume — worth learning as whole units.
toată lumea— everyone, everybody
lit. “all the-world”