înapoia

Forms

înapoia (third-person singular present înapoiază, past participle înapoiat), first conjugation^[1] Variants are regional napoia and the old înapoi with the present înapoiesc.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian înapoi + -a, a verb made on the adverb “back”.^{[2][4][5][3][1]} The adverb înapoi is în + apoi (“then, afterwards”), which goes back to Latin ad (“to”) + post (“after, behind”).^[5] The verb has counterparts south of the Danube: Aromanian năpuire and Megleno-Romanian năpoiri.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is a document of 1819, in the senses “to give back; to turn someone back; to come back”.^[5] Tiktin and MDA2 date it from Simeon Marcovici's translation of Young's Nights (1831;^[3][6][4] MDA2 cites the second edition, 1835), where it means “to turn back”: „puteă înapoia cursul râurilor”, “could turn back the course of rivers”.^[3][6][4]

Semantic evolution

From “to turn back” the verb took the sense “to give back, return”, the main one today, and as a reflexive “to come back, return”.^[6][2] In the 19th century it also meant “to put behind, to hinder”: a înapoia pe cineva în lucru was to hold someone back from work, and figuratively “to slight, humiliate”: in one of Sbiera's tales a girl says „M-ai înapoiat, m-ai desprețuit”, “you set me aside, you despised me”.^[6][3][4] The reflexive and intransitive senses “to fall behind, regress, decline” are now old: Kogălniceanu wrote that history shows whether a people advances „sau dacă se înapoiază”.^[7][2]

Timeline

• 1819 – “to give back; to return” in a document, the first record.^[5]
• 1831 – “to turn back” in Marcovici's translation.^[3][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To give back, return, restore: I-am înapoiat cartea împrumutată.^[2][4]
2. (reflexive) To come back to the place one left.^[2][7]
3. (figurative, obsolete) To fall behind, regress, decline.^[2][4]
4. (obsolete) To hold someone back; to slight or humiliate someone.^[4][6]

Related words

• înapoi
• apoi
• dinapoia
• întoarce

Usage notes

DEX has a homograph înapoia¹, a preposition with the genitive meaning “behind”: înapoia casei “behind the house”; it is also formed on înapoi.^[2][8] DELR records it first as an adverb “back” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, and the Bible of 1688 uses it (Ruth 1:15).^[5][9]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 536
3. ^ 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. înapoia
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1200
5. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. apoi
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. înapoia
7. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 586
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. înapoia
9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ruth 1:15