împleti

Forms

împleti (third-person singular present împletește, past participle împletit), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

DEX and NODEX derive it from Romanian în- + pleată (“lock of hair”), from its plural plete.^[2][3] Ciorănescu and Tiktin take it straight from Old Church Slavonic плести (plesti, “to plait”), present плетѫ (pletǫ), and MDA2 from that Slavonic verb with the prefix în-.^[4][5][6] For Ciorănescu pleată itself comes from a Slavonic noun of the same verb, so the two explanations meet in the same root.^[7] Wiktionary also mentions an inheritance from Latin plectō (“to plait”) or implectō, or the reverse order, with the noun formed on the verb.^[1]

The Slavonic verb goes back to Proto-Slavic *plesti, which has Russian плести (plestí), Bulgarian плета (pletá), Serbo-Croatian plesti and Polish pleść among its descendants.^[8][9] It is related to the Latin verb and to Ancient Greek πλέκω (plékō).^[9] South of the Danube it has the forms Aromanian mplătescu or mpiltescu, and Megleno-Romanian amplités.^[4][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is împletesc in Coresi's Psalter of 1570, at Psalm 57:2, a verse that Coresi's later psalters and the 1688 Bible repeat.^[12][13] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană of the same decades.^[5] The Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of Mardarie (1649) glosses împletesc with Slavonic “to weave together”.^[14] MDA2 dates it to Dosoftei's lives of the saints (1682–1686).^[6]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense is to interlace strands or bundles of thread, hair, twigs or straw.^[6][2] From it come the uses for plaiting hair, twisting dough into ring loaves, weaving wreaths, baskets, fences and mats, and knitting or crocheting.^[6][5] Tiktin quotes the saying a împleti la cosițe albe “to plait white tresses”, of a woman who stays unmarried.^[5] The old language also had the figurative sense “to plot, scheme”, matching the Slavonic idiom for weaving plots.^[5][15] Reflexive uses for things that intertwine or combine are more recent.^[2][6] The old variants împreti and pleti are recorded too.^[6][5]

Timeline

• 1570 – împletesc in Coresi's Psalter.^[12]
• 16th century – the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[5]
• 1649 – împletesc in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1682–1686 – Dosoftei's lives of the saints, MDA2's first record.^[6]
• 1688 – împleti, împletit and împletind in the Bucharest Bible.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To interlace several threads or strands so that they form one whole.^[2][3]
2. (transitive) To plait or braid hair.^[2][1]
3. (transitive) To make objects of twisted thread, twigs or flowers; to knit; to shape ring loaves from strips of dough: Bunica împletește un pulover.^[2][1]
4. (reflexive, reciprocal, figurative) To cross, intersect; to combine.^[2][6]
5. (intransitive, rare) a împleti din picioare: to move the feet quickly; to dance.^[2]
6. (transitive, figurative, obsolete) To plot, scheme.^[2][5]

Word family

• împletitor
• împletitură
• despleti
• împletici
• împleticeală

Related words

• pleată
• Aromanian mplătescu

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. 534
3. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. împleti
4. ^ a b 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. împleti
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. împleti
6. ^ 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, 1193
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. pleată
8. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 403
9. ^ a b Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress, p. 3, 280
10. ^ 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. 2, 199
11. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 669
12. ^ 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 57:2
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 57:2
14. ^ a b 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. împletesc
15. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org, p. s.v. плести
16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Judg 16:13