rompre

Forms

rompre (first-person singular present rompo, first-person singular preterite rompí, past participle romput)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Catalan rompre, which is inherited from Latin rumpō (“to break, burst”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]}

The same Latin verb is Occitan rompre, Spanish romper, French rompre, Italian rompere and Romanian rupe.^[6][1] Wiktionary traces it to *rumpō, a present with a nasal infix from the root *Hrewp- (“to break”).^[1]

The past participle was ⟨rot⟩, ⟨rota⟩ through most of the Middle Ages, and these remained the normal forms well into the 15th century.^[2] Coromines finds the analogical ⟨romput⟩ in Roussillon first, with ⟨romputs⟩ in an inventory of 1399, and regards the ⟨romput⟩ attributed to Llull as the work of a Valencian adapter of 1528; it is current in Joanot Martorell.^[2] ⟨Rot⟩ survives in Valencian as an adjective for someone poorly dressed.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

CICA's first text is the Catalan Usatges de Barcelona, of the first half of the 13th century.^[7] Bruguera and the GDLC date the word from the Vides de sants rosselloneses, where a man answers the empress that he will weave her a cloth she will not be able to break (rompre) as long as she lives.^[4][5][2]

Semantic evolution

Desclot's prince breaks his lance in a charge, and Saint Vincent Ferrer says that a ray passes through a window without breaking the glass.^[2] Medieval Catalan also used rompre en for charging an enemy, and rompre for a ship being wrecked, a use that grew from the reflexive of the Consolat de mar and is plainly intransitive in Muntaner.^[2] Faraudo adds the senses to break a law or privilege, to fall out with someone (Curial e Güelfa), to rout a troop, and to plough untilled land for the first time.^[8] This last sense gave the noun rompuda, a piece of newly broken land, recorded in an ordinance of 1323 for the garrigues of Salvaterra in Roussillon.^[2][4]

Coromines notes that rompre and trencar do not share the meaning the same way everywhere: Central Catalan uses trencar rather more than the outlying dialects do.^[2] The DIEC2 defines rompre as breaking by a force spread over an area, and lists phrases such as rompre el glaç and rompre el cor.^[9] Bruguera dates rompiment to the 13th-century Usatges, rompedor to 1696 and rompent to Labèrnia's dictionary of 1839.^[4]

Timeline

• 1200–1249 – first record in CICA, the Usatges de Barcelona.^[7]
• 13th century – the Vides de sants rosselloneses.^[2][4]
• 1323 – rompre and rompuda for breaking new land, in an ordinance for Salvaterra.^[8][2]
• 1399 – the participle romputs in a Roussillon inventory;^[2] rot is still the usual form.^[2]
• 1440 – rompre ab “to break with” in Curial e Güelfa.^[8]
• 1839 – rompent in Labèrnia's dictionary.^[4]
• 1932 – Fabra distinguishes rompre from tallar.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To break, split into pieces or destroy the continuity of something by a force spread over an area: Ha romput la branca amb les mans.^[9][5][1]
2. (pronominal) To break, to be broken;^[9][3] rompre's un os, to break a bone.^[9][3]
3. (intransitive) Of waves, to break against rocks or a shore.^[9]
4. rompre el glaç: to break the ice, end a tense or reserved situation.^[9]
5. rompre el cor: to cause deep grief.^[9]
6. To rout a body of armed men.^[9][8]

Word family

• rompedor
• rompent
• rompiment
• rompuda
• irrompible

Related words

• corrompre
• trencar
• Latin rumpō
• Spanish romper
• Occitan rompre

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 7, 432
3. ^ a b c Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. rompre
4. ^ a b c d e f Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 806
5. ^ a b c Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. rompre
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7442
7. ^ a b Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. rompre
8. ^ a b c d Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. rompre
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. rompre
10. ^ Fabra, Pompeu (1932), Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Llibreria Catalònia, p. s.v. rompre