îmblânzi

Forms

îmblânzi (third-person singular present îmblânzește, past participle îmblânzit) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian în- + blând, “to make gentle”, the view of Ciorănescu, Tiktin, DEX and MDA2.^[2][3][4][5] The adjective blând “gentle” is from Latin blandus (“smooth-tongued, caressing”).^[2]

Others see a Latin verb behind it: Pușcariu a Vulgar Latin *blandiō for classical blandior (“to flatter, caress”), and the DA likewise;^[2][6][7][8] Candrea and Densusianu and CADE a prefixed *imblandiō.^[2][6][7][8] DELR gives both views.^[7] The old sense “to caress”, which the DA calls the etymological one, matches the Latin verb.^[6] The REW lists the Romanian verb under that Vulgar Latin form, with French blandir and Spanish blandir.^[9] Old Romanian also had the unprefixed blânzi, recorded from 1691.^[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Coresi's Psalter of 1570, at Psalm 82:1.^[10] DELR and MDA2 cite the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), where it is said of God calming the turmoil of the sea's waves.^[7][5][6]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the verb meant “to caress, comfort”: Varlaam's Cazania says that the Lord comforted a woman and drove fear from her heart.^[6][3] Brought closer again to blând, it came to mean “to calm, appease” a person, their anger or a storm, as in Coresi's „îmblânzit-ai toată mânia ta” “you have calmed all your wrath”.^[6] The sense “to tame an animal” appears in Alecsandri, of the old custom of taming falcons for hunting.^[3] The reflexive means “to grow gentle” and, of the weather or wind, “to abate”.^[5][4]

Romanian derived îmblânzeală (1652), îmblânzitor “tamer” (1760–1761) and neîmblânzit “untamed” (1700–1712).^[7]

Timeline

• 1570 – first record, in Coresi's Psalter (Ps 82:1).^[10]
• c. 1573–1578 – “to calm” in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[6][7][5]
• 1649 – glossed with Slavonic крощу “I tame” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[11]
• 1652 – the derivative îmblânzeală.^[7]
• 1688 – nine occurrences in the Bucharest Bible, from Genesis 32:20.^[12]
• 1700–1712 – neîmblânzit “untamed” in N. Costin.^[7]
• 1760–1761 – îmblânzitor “tamer”.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To tame or domesticate a wild animal.^[4][5][1]
2. (transitive and reflexive) To make or become gentler; to calm, appease, soothe: Vorbele ei l-au îmblânzit. “Her words calmed him down.”^[4][5]
3. (reflexive, figurative; of a storm, the wind, a voice) To abate, die down.^[4][5]
4. (obsolete) To caress, comfort.^[5][6]

Word family

• îmblânzitor

Related words

• blând
• blândețe
• blânzi
• Latin blandus

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. blând
3. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. îmblânzi
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 531
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1182
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. îmblânzi
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. blând
8. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. îmblânzi
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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 82:1
11. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. îmblânzi
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 32:20