împărți

Forms

împărți (third-person singular present împarte, past participle împărțit, third-person subjunctive împartă), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin impartiō (“to share, divide”), the form behind the Romanian verb in DEX, MDA2 and Wiktionary.^[2][3][1] The REW lists the Romanian verb under this Latin one, beside Italian impartire “to allot” and Spanish impartir “to grant”.^[4] The Latin verb is a variant of impertiō, built on partiō (“to divide, share”).^[5][6][1] It survives in Aromanian as mpartu (“to divide, distribute”).^[7][8]

Ciorănescu does not give the verb an entry of its own: he lists it among the derivatives of parte, and notes only that Candrea and Densusianu refer it to the Latin verb.^[9] He explains împărtăși “to share, communicate” from părtaș in the same way as this verb from the noun.^[9] Wiktionary also notes that the verb can be analysed as from Romanian în- + parte + -i.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the earliest Romanian psalter, the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, as împărți (Psalms 49:5, 59:6, 111:8), împărțiră “they divided” (Psalm 21:19) and împărțit (Psalm 135:13).^[10] Tiktin's first record is the 16th-century Codicele Voronețean, at Acts 23:7.^[11] MDA2 dates it from the Psaltirea Scheiană of about 1573–1578, and gives as its oldest sense “to pick out one thing from others of the same kind”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Romanian used the verb for kinds of separation that it has since lost: to divorce, to annul a marriage, to leave a wife, to move away from someone, and to let a child leave the parental home;^[3] MDA2 labels all these obsolete.^[3] The modern core is “to divide into parts” and “to give out shares”, with the arithmetical sense “to divide one number by another” and the sense “to share something with someone”.^[2] Tiktin records the proverb Cine împarte, parte-și face “whoever does the dividing keeps a share for himself”.^[11]

Its family includes împărțire “division”, împărțeală “sharing out”, împărțitor “divisor; distributor” and deîmpărțit “dividend”.^[9]

Timeline

• early 16th century – împărți, împărțiră and împărțit in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10]
• c. 1551–1558 – împărți in the Psaltirea de la Voroneț (Psalms 77:60, 111:8).^[12]
• 16th century – in the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 23:7).^[11]
• 1570 – împărți in Coresi's psalter (Psalms 39:15, 77:60, 111:8).^[13]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană, MDA2's first record.^[3]
• 1688 – forms of the verb in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To divide into parts or groups; to split, separate.^[2][3]
2. (transitive, rare) To classify.^[2]
3. (transitive, arithmetic) To divide one number by another.^[2]
4. (transitive) To distribute, give out a share of something to several people: Bunica a împărțit prăjiturile copiilor.^[2][11]
5. (reflexive) To spread out, scatter.^[2]
6. (transitive, with cu) To share something with someone.^[2]

Word family

• împărțire
• împărțeală
• împărțitor
• deîmpărțit

Related words

• despărți
• parte
• Aromanian mpartu

Usage notes

A nu avea ce împărți or a nu avea nimic de împărțit (cu cineva) means “to have nothing to do with someone, nothing in common”.^[2][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 533
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, 1189
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4294
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 703
8. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 138
9. ^ a b c 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. parte
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 21:19
11. ^ 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. împărți
12. ^ 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 77:60
13. ^ 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 39:15
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. s.v. împărți