împotriva

Forms

împotriva (+genitive)^[1] Old texts also have împrotiva: Varlaam writes of „mila lui Dumnedzău împrotiva noastră și a noastră nemilostivire împrotiva fraților noștri” “God's mercy towards us and our mercilessness towards our brothers”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is the form with the definite article of the adverb from Romanian împotrivă: when its noun part is followed by a genitive or a possessive pronoun, it takes the article and works as a preposition.^[2][4][5]

The adverb joins în and potrivă.^[2][3] The noun was borrowed from Old Church Slavonic противъ (protivŭ, “against”).^[6][1] The DA notes that the Slavic languages use their word for “against” as an adverb and a preposition in the same way.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the adverb împotrivă, with its old variant împotriva, to the Tetraevanghel of 1574.^[3] The articled form itself is in Coresi's Psalter of 1577, at Psalm 147:6.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the preposition expressed likeness and correspondence rather than opposition: “like”, “compared with”, “towards”, “in exchange for”, “according to”.^[2][3] The DA quotes Miron Costin for the comparative sense: the uproar here was nothing „împotriva faptei care s-au făcut” “compared with the deed that was done”.^[2] Spatial senses, “facing, opposite”, survive in old and rare use, and “towards” is now rare.^[2][4]

The sense “against, contrary to” became the main one.^[2][4] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it to render Slavonic words of opposition, from Mardarie's lexicon of 1649 on, and the Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it 114 times.^[8][9]

Timeline

• 1577 – împotriva in Coresi's Psalter.^[7]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[8]
• 1688 – 114 times in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]

Meanings

Preposition

1. (with the genitive) against, contrary to, in spite of: A votat împotriva propunerii.^[4][1]
2. (with the genitive) Against, in the opposite direction, or to counter something: un vaccin împotriva gripei.^[10]
3. (rare) towards.^[4][11]
4. (obsolete) In front of, facing.^[4][3]

Related words

• împotrivă
• împotrivi
• dimpotrivă
• deopotrivă
• potrivă

Usage notes

Împotriva is followed by the genitive (împotriva vântului “against the wind”) or by a possessive (împotriva mea).^[2][10] The DA records the rarer construction împotrivă-mi “against me”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. împotrivă
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1195
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 534
5. ^ Wikționar (Romanian Wiktionary), ro.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. împotriva
6. ^ 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. potrivă
7. ^ 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 147:6
8. ^ 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. împotriva
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 14:8
10. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. împotriva
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 577