îmbăta

Forms

îmbăta (third-person singular present îmbată, past participle îmbătat, third-person subjunctive îmbete), first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *imbibitō, formed on Latin bibitus (“drunk”), the past participle of bibō (“to drink”), which also gave beat (“drunk”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} DELR compares Occitan embeuda, Old Spanish embebdar, Portuguese embebedar and the Middle French participle emboieté.^[2] Ciorănescu finds the Latin verb unnecessary and takes the verb as a Romanian derivative of the adjective, and DELR records both views.^[7][2]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian mbet and Megleno-Romanian ămbitari.^[2][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is Coresi's psalter of 1570,^[2] where the participle îmbătat occurs.^[9] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), Psalm 35:9.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The verb means to make drunk and, in the reflexive, to get drunk.^[4][5] Ion Neculce wrote of the Cossacks made drunk with spirits: „Au îmbătat cu holercă pre Cazaci”.^[6] By analogy strong smells could make one drunk, as in Konaki, and 19th-century writers used it for enchantment: a folk poem by Alecsandri has a girl who „îl îmbată cu gurița” “makes him drunk with her little mouth”.^[6][5][4]

Familiar speech has many expressions for degrees of drunkenness: a se îmbăta lulea, tun, turtă or criță “to get dead drunk”.^[4][3][6] A îmbăta pe cineva cu apă rece, “to make someone drunk with cold water”, means to fool someone with empty words.^[4][6] Derivatives include îmbătător “intoxicating”, from 1691–1697, and dezbăta “to sober up”, formed by changing the prefix, from 1825.^[2]

Timeline

• 1570 – îmbătat in Coresi's psalter.^[2][9]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[5]
• 1688 – îmbăta and îmbătat in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]
• 1691–1697 – îmbătător “intoxicating” in Teodor Corbea's dictionary.^[2]
• 1825 – dezbăta “to sober up” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive and transitive) To get drunk, or to make someone drunk, to intoxicate.^[4][3][1]
2. (of strong smells) To cause a state like drunkenness, to make dizzy.^[4][3]
3. (figurative) To enchant, to bewilder, to trouble the mind.^[4][3]

Word family

• îmbătat
• îmbătător
• dezbăta

Related words

• beat

Usage notes

Many synonyms describe getting drunk: a se afuma, a se aghesmui, a se chercheli, a se turti.^[3][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. beat
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1180
4. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 530
5. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. îmbăta
6. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. îmbăta
7. ^ Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. beat
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 639
9. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 77:71
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 9:21