înfrâna

Forms

Verb: third-person singular present înfrânează, past participle înfrânat; 1st conjugation.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin īnfrēnō (“to bridle”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} MDA2 marks the Latin form as reconstructed.^[6] Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of frâu “bridle”, but notes that Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu and the REW take it from the Latin verb.^[7] Tiktin explains the variant înfrâua by the influence of the noun.^[3]

It has a parallel Aromanian nfãrnu.^[1] Its Romance cognates include Italian infrenare, Old French enfrener, Spanish enfrenar and Portuguese enfrear.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to the Codicele Voronețean of the 16th century (1 Peter 2:15), and MDA2 also cites that text.^[3][6] The figurative sense “to curb” is the one there.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Both senses are old: “to bridle a horse” and “to curb, restrain”.^[3] Cantemir urged that the desires of the world „să le înfrănedzi și să le hățuiești” “be bridled and reined in”, and the Bible of 1688 renders Christ's words to the sea as „domolește-te, înfrânează-te” “be calm, be still” (Mark 4:39).^[3] The DA records the literal sense mainly in folk literature.^[4] By extension it came to mean “to tame” wild animals.^[2][6] The old present înfrân gave way to înfrânez.^[6][3]

Timeline

• c. 1563-1583 – first record, in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][6]
• 1672-1673 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[8]
• 1688 – the imperative înfrânează-te in the Bucharest Bible.^[3]
• 1801 – înfrânez in Klein's dictionary.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To bridle a horse; by extension, to tame an animal.^[2][6][1]
2. (transitive, figurative) To check, hold back, calm.^[2]
3. (transitive and reflexive, figurative) To restrain oneself or one's feelings: Și-a înfrânat furia.^[2][6]

Word family

• înfrânare
• neînfrânat
• înfrânător

Related words

• frâu
• frână
• desfrâna

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 547
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. înfrâná
4. ^ a b 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. înfrâna
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4411
6. ^ 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, 1228
7. ^ 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. frâu
8. ^ 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. înfrîna
9. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 380