îngriji

Forms

îngriji (third-person singular present îngrijește, past participle îngrijit) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian în- + grijă, from the noun “care, worry”, as DEX, MDA2 and the DA give it.^[2][3][4] The noun is from Bulgarian грижа (griža).^[5][1]

Old texts also have a verb without the prefix, griji (and grijui), in the same senses.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from about 1600.^[6] In Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649, îngrijesc glosses a Slavonic verb “to sadden, to grieve”: the old sense was “to worry”.^[7][4]

Semantic evolution

The DA compares the phrase a intra în grijă “to start to worry”.^[4] The verb first meant “to worry, to be anxious”, and transitively “to make someone worry”.^[4][6] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has s-au îngrijat pentru voi “he is anxious about you” (1 Samuel 10:2).^[6] That sense is now dated, and îngrijora has taken it over.^[2]

From “to worry about” came “to take care of, to provide for, to tend”, as of flowers or of someone with a toothache.^[6][4] Modern Romanian uses the verb above all for looking after people, animals and things, nursing the sick and, reflexively, for taking care of one's own health.^[2][3] Moldavia and Transylvania had a variant îngrija with the present îngrijez.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1600 – the first record in Tiktin.^[6]
• 1649 – îngrijesc in Mardarie's lexicon.^[7]
• 1688 – îngrijat “anxious” in the Bucharest Bible.^[6][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, intransitive and reflexive) To take care of someone or something; to look after: îngrijește de grădină “she tends the garden”.^[2][3]
2. (transitive) To keep something in good order.^[2][8]
3. (transitive) To nurse; to care for someone's health.^[2]
4. (reflexive) To look after one's health; to undergo treatment.^[2][3]
5. (reflexive, with de) To provide oneself with something in good time.^[2]
6. (dated) (reflexive and transitive) To worry; to make anxious.^[2][4]

Related words

• grijă
• îngrijora
• îngrijit
• îngrijitor

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 549
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1235
4. ^ 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. îngriji
5. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1023
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. îngriji
7. ^ a b 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. îngrijesc
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. îngriji