îneca

Forms

îneca (third-person singular present îneacă, past participle înecat, third-person subjunctive înece) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian în- + neca (“to kill”), the old verb neca continuing Latin necō (“to kill”).^[2][3][1][4] Ciorănescu and the REW derive the verb directly from the Latin verb, with the form without the prefix as a variant, and Nocentini starts it from Vulgar Latin *innecō, a spoken form with the prefix in-.^[5][6][7] The Latin verb is formed on nex (“violent death”).^[8][7]

Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian have Aromanian nec and Megleno-Romanian nec, the latter also meaning “to strangle, kill”.^[5][9][10] Its Romance cognates include Italian annegare, Occitan negar, French noyer, and Spanish anegar and Portuguese anegar.^[5][6] In all of them the sense “to drown” replaced the Latin “to kill (without a weapon)”, which Candrea–Densusianu explain through “to suffocate”, already present in classical Latin, and date to early Vulgar Latin.^[11][5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest form is neca in Psalm 123:3 of the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, in the early 16th century.^[12] Tiktin's first record of îneca is the Psaltirea Scheiană, Psalm 68:16.^[13] MDA2 starts from Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură (1581).^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Romanian still used the verb for strangling, as Megleno-Romanian does, and for choking in general: the Bible of 1688 tells how the thorns sprang up and choked the seed, „crescură spinii și le înecară pre ele”.^[13][3] Ciorănescu suggests that the Romance shift to “drown” owes something to the drowning of puppies and kittens and to execution by drowning, and so sees no need to explain the double sense “kill” and “drown” of several Balkan words through Romanian.^[5]

From drowning the verb passed to ships that sink, waters that flood a valley or a field, and grief or smoke that chokes someone.^[13][2] Dosoftei's lives of the saints (1682–1686) tell of devils who swore to drown a saint in the sea.^[13] Proverbs and set phrases include doi cârmaci îneacă corabia “two helmsmen sink the ship” and a se îneca la mal “to drown at the shore”, to fail at the last moment.^[13][2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – neca in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[12]
• c. 1573–1578 – îneca in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[13]
• 1581 – in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[3]
• 1688 – înecară “choked” and “drowned” in the Bucharest Bible.^[14][13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive and transitive) To drown: to die, or make someone die, by suffocation in water or another liquid.^[2][1] A se îneca (ca țiganul) la mal: to fail at the last moment.^[2][1]
2. (reflexive, of ships) To sink.^[2] (Figurative) To plunge into something.^[2] Parcă i s-au înecat corăbiile is said of someone who looks sad.^[2]
3. (transitive, of waters) To flood a place or a field;^[2] (figurative) to overwhelm, smother.^[2]
4. (reflexive and transitive) To choke, suffocate;^[2][1] (of tears) to overcome someone, stopping the breath.^[2][1]

Word family

• înecător
• înecăcios
• înecătură
• înecăciune
• înec

Related words

• neca
• Aromanian nec

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 545
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1224
4. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. îneca
5. ^ a b c d e 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. îneca
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 747
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 205
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
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 123:3
13. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. îneca
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 13:7