întâmpla

Forms

întâmpla (third-person singular present întâmplă, past participle întâmplat, third-person subjunctive întâmple) 1st conjugation^[1] The old language often has the shorter tâmpla: Coresi's homiliary says of Peter „Aceasta... se tâmplă lui Pătru în mare” “this happened to Peter at sea”.^[2] Old texts also have a present in -ez: „să îi se întâmpleze lui” “that it should happen to him” (1652).^[2][3]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[4][3][1] Most etymologists, among them Pușcariu, the DA and Rosetti, take it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *intemplō or *templō, a verb formed on Latin templum (“space of sky marked out by the augur; temple”): the birds that flew into the augur's space would have shown what was going to happen.^[4][2][1] The DA counts it among the few words of the pagan cult that Romanian kept,^[2] and DEX gives the same etymon as probable.^[5]

Ciorănescu finds it hard to believe that a word for chance events came from the events an augur had foretold.^[4] He suggests that the Latin noun kept an older sense here, as a diminutive of tempus (“time”) (compare extemplō (“immediately”)), so that the verb first meant “to come about in time”.^[4] Wiktionary also finds the link with the word for time perhaps more likely.^[1] Tiktin gives two possibilities: *temporō, built on that word, with the sound development of tâmplă “temple (of the head)” from tempora, or the verb formed on the augur's term.^[6] Ciorănescu rejects this derivation from the word for time, proposed by Körting and Byhan, and Crețu's intemperō.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and Tiktin date the first record to the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), where Tiktin cites it in Acts 20:19.^[3][6] From the start it meant “to happen, to befall (someone)”: the New Testament of 1648 has „Năpastile cealea ce mi se-au tâmplatu” “the misfortunes that befell me”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The old language used the verb more widely than today.^[3] MDA2 lists obsolete senses such as “to be fulfilled”, “to proceed in a certain way”, “to have by chance” and “to do by chance”.^[3] Dosoftei once used it transitively, of an illness that overtook someone on the road;^[4][6] Ciorănescu wonders whether this is an older sense or one of that writer's many improprieties.^[4][6] The sense “to happen to be somewhere, to be present by chance” was common in the 18th century: a document of 1768 says „numai noi ne-am întâmplat lângă dânsa” “only we happened to be at her side”.^[6]

Today the verb is reflexive and impersonal: something happens, or happens to someone, and one happens to do or be something.^[5] Its derivatives are întâmplare “chance; event, incident” and întâmplător “accidental”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – the first record, in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][6]
• 1648 – tâmplatu “befallen” in the New Testament of Bălgrad.^[2]
• 1652 – the present subjunctive întâmpleze.^[2]
• 1688 – întâmpla and its forms over fifty times in the Bucharest Bible.^[7]
• 1768 – ne-am întâmplat “we happened to be (there)” in a document.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive, of events) to happen, to occur, to take place; with a dative, to happen to someone: Ce s-a întâmplat cu mașina ta?^[5][3]
2. (reflexive) to happen to be somewhere or to do something; to chance: I s-a întâmplat să-l vadă pe stradă.^[5][3]
3. (obsolete) to come upon someone unexpectedly; to have something by chance.^[3]

Word family

• întâmplare
• întâmplător

Related words

• tâmplă
• Latin templum

Usage notes

The verb is reflexive and used in the third person: se întâmplă, s-a întâmplat.^[5] The old present întâmplez survives only in old texts.^[3][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. întâmpla
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1252
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. întîmpla
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 555
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. întâmpla
7. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 42:38