împrăștia

Forms

împrăștia (third-person singular present împrăștie, past participle împrăștiat) 1st conjugation^[1] An old and popular variant is împrăschia.^[2] Ispirescu spells it împrăscia: „Voi împrăsciați-vă care încotro și vă duceți acasă” “Scatter, each of you wherever you like, and go home”.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian în- + praștie (“sling”),^{[3][2][4][1][5]} the noun being from Old Church Slavonic праща (prašta, “sling”).^[6][1] The DA explains it as a military term at first: to strike the enemy with the sling so that he flees.^[3] Șăineanu likewise reads it as “to hurl with the sling”, a technical word that became general.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to Dosoftei's lives of the saints (Iași, 1682–1686); Tiktin gives 1683 for the same author.^[2][5] The early quotations speak of people and armies scattered and put to flight; the Moldavian chronicles say of a defeated band „i-au împrăștiet”, “they scattered them”.^[3] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses it of God scattering a people among the nations: „Și te voiu împrăștia în țări”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The DA notes that the original sense, striking with the sling, was lost once the sling became a children's toy; only the general sense “to scatter” remained.^[3] From crowds and armies put to flight it spread to things thrown or strewn in all directions, such as leaves blown by the wind, and to news spread abroad.^[7][5]

Figuratively one “scatters” thoughts or a heavy mood, as in Negruzzi's line that some pastorals could not dispel his melancholy.^[5][4] Reflexive uses cover liquids that spread, a fortune that is squandered and a swelling that goes down.^[2]

Timeline

• 1682–1686 – first record, in Dosoftei's lives of the saints.^[2]
• 1688 – împrăștiat twice in the Bucharest Bible.^[8]
• 1688 – „Și te voiu împrăștia în țări” in the Bucharest Bible (Ezekiel 22:15).^[5]
• 1929 – Șăineanu glosses it “to throw here and there; to send to various places; to put to flight”.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To scatter, to make go or flee in all directions, or to go or flee that way; to disperse: Poliția a împrăștiat mulțimea.^[4][2][1]
2. By analogy, to break apart and fall in pieces, by a fall or by being overturned.^[4][2]
3. (transitive, figurative) To drive away thoughts or a gloomy mood; to dispel.^[4][1]
4. (reflexive, of liquids) To spread, to diffuse.^[4][2]
5. (transitive and reflexive, often figurative) To extend, to spread widely.^[4][2]

Word family

• împrăștiere

Related words

• praștie

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1195
3. ^ a b c d e 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. împrăștia
4. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 534
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. împrăștia
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. praștie
7. ^ a b c Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 310
8. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 3 Kings 22:17