împușca

Forms

împușca (third-person singular present împușcă, past participle împușcat, third-person subjunctive împuște) 1st conjugation^[1] A regional variant without the prefix, pușca, is used in Transylvania, Banat, Crișana, Bukovina, northern Moldavia and Maramureș: „Vânătorii văzând că cerbul nu fuge din loc … nu pușcară în el” “the hunters, seeing that the stag did not run, did not shoot at it” (Reteganul).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian în- + pușcă (“gun”).^[4][5][1] The Academy dictionary describes it as derived from pușcă with or without the prefix, since the plain verb pușca is also in use;^[6][7] Ciorănescu lists both forms among the derivatives of the noun.^[6][7] The noun itself is traced by Ciorănescu to Old Church Slavonic пѹшька (pušĭka) and by MDA2 to Hungarian puska.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Lexiconul Marsilian of about 1700, with the sense “to shoot (dead)”.^[2] The earliest record in MDA2 is a passage of Gheorghe Șincai's chronicle, printed in 1853, which has the variant without the prefix: „Pușcașii Radului… au început a pușca” “Radu's musketeers began to fire”.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The verb has two basic constructions: intransitive “to fire a gun”, and transitive “to hit, wound or kill someone with a shot”, with the special sense “to execute a condemned person by shooting”.^[6][5] The reflexive a se împușca means “to shoot oneself”.^[3] By analogy it came to describe things that crack or burst like a shot: an engine that backfires, a charge that is detonated, liquids that spurt out, and plaster that blisters and flakes off a wall.^[5][4]

The compound împușcă-n lună, literally “one who shoots at the moon”, names a reckless daredevil;^[2][6] Tiktin quotes it from Alecsandri and Costache Negruzzi.^[2][6] The colloquial phrase a împușca francul “to shoot the franc” means to be short of money and live from hand to mouth.^[4][3] A technical sense, “to drive nails or bolts into concrete with a special gun”, is recorded from 1975.^[9] Slang adds “to win or squander a large sum quickly” and, reflexively, “to get drunk”.^[5][10]

Timeline

• c. 1700 – the first record, in the Lexiconul Marsilian.^[2]
• 1853 – the variant pușca in the printed edition of Șincai's chronicle, MDA2's first record.^[5][6]
• 1975 – a împușca bolțuri “to fire bolts into concrete”.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To shoot, to kill or wound someone (or oneself) with a bullet from a firearm.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive) To fire a gun;^[4][5] (figurative) to make bangs like gunshots.^[4][5]
3. (intransitive) To set off an explosive charge.^[4]
4. (intransitive and reflexive, of plaster) To blister and flake off.^[4][5]
5. (transitive) To drive nails into a concrete surface with a special tool.^[4][9]
6. (colloquial, of a pupil) To get an unexpected bad grade.^[1]

Word family

• împușcat
• împușcătură
• împușcare
• împușcă-n lună

Related words

• pușca
• pușcă
• pușcaș

Usage notes

Împușcă-n lună “daredevil, reckless person” is invariable.^[4][11] A împușca francul means “to be hard up, to live from day to day”.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. împușca
3. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 582
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 535
5. ^ 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, 1198
6. ^ a b c d e f g 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. împușca
7. ^ 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. pușcă
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 607
9. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. împușca
10. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. împușca
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 518