împila

Forms

împila (third-person singular present împilează, past participle împilat), first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *impillō (“to pound in a fulling mill”), from pilō (“to press, ram down”).^[2][3][1] The DA explains its double ⟨ll⟩ as a form found in other Romance languages too, as in the Vulgar Latin word for “mortar” behind piuă;^[3][2] Ciorănescu also compares pil.^[3][2] Tiktin likewise starts from the sense “to full” and compares Italian follare and French fouler, which went from fulling cloth to trampling;^[4][2] Ciorănescu adds Modern Greek πιλέω (piléo).^[4][2]

Drăganu derived it instead from chilă through a variant închila, a view Ciorănescu finds less convincing.^[2] CADE took it from a lost plural of that noun, “to put into the fulling mill”.^[5] DEX 2009 and NODEX call it of unknown origin.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to the Bucharest Bible of 1688, at Psalm 56:8: „și mi-au împilat sufletul mieu” “and they bowed down my soul”.^[4][8] MDA2's first record is a handbook of farming for the Romanian schools of Hungary.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Tiktin glosses the old verb “to press down” and finds it now probably only figurative, “to oppress”.^[4] Anton Pann has fate pressing his life down to the ground.^[4][5] The DA takes “to beat in the fulling mill” as the basic sense.^[3]

The regional senses keep the concrete meaning: to trample grass, to press hay, to hobble a horse by tying its head to a foreleg, and, in the reflexive, to stay stunted.^[10][9] The standard language knows only “to oppress”.^[6] Ciorănescu lists the derivative împilător “oppressive”.^[2]

Timeline

• 1688 – împilat in the Bucharest Bible, the first record.^[4][8]
• 1869 – Barițiu gives it as an equivalent of Hungarian nyomaszt “to oppress”.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To oppress, to tyrannize: Boierii îi împilau pe țărani.^[6][7][1]
2. To press down, to weigh heavily on.^[4][5][1]
3. (regional) To trample grass; to press hay; to hobble a horse.^[10][9]
4. (regional, reflexive) To stay small, to become stunted.^[10]

Word family

• împilător

Related words

• piuă
• pil

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. împila
3. ^ a b c d 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. împila
4. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. împila
5. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. împila
6. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 534
7. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. împila
8. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 56:8
9. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1191
10. ^ a b c Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. împila
11. ^ Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 404