întoarcere

Forms

întoarcere f (plural întoarceri)^[1]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of întoarce, formed from Romanian întoarce + -re, and names the action of turning or returning and its result.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} The verb comes from intorqueō (“to twist, turn round”), with a Vulgar Latin stage in ⟨-c-⟩ that Wiktionary reconstructs; the Latin verb is formed on torqueō (“to twist”).^[6][1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin finds the noun in the 16th century, in the Codicele Voronețean's text of the Acts of the Apostles (23:12), with the sense “return”.^[5] MDA2 dates its first record to Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581.^[4] Gaster's chrestomathy records it in old texts as “return”, “conversion” and “change”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The noun follows the senses of the verb.^[3][4] Its main sense is a return, a coming back to the place one left, as opposed to departure.^[9][10] In the old language it also meant a spiritual conversion and the undoing of a spell, and it named the tropic, the turning point of the sun's apparent course.^[5][4] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it to render Slavonic words for return and turning away, from Mardarie's lexicon of 1649 on.^[11] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it ten times.^[12]

In farming it names the castration of young bulls and rams by twisting, a sense Tiktin quotes from an agricultural text, and the phrase întoarcerea brazdei “the turning of the furrow” names the autumn ploughing.^[5][4] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 also gives it the senses “giving back” and “translation” of a book into another language.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – first record, “return”, in the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 23:12).^[5]
• 1581 – in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[4]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – ten times in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda gives “return”, “restitution”, “translation” and “conversion”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A return: the act of coming back to the place one left.^[9][3][1]
2. A turning towards another point; a change of direction.^[9]
3. A rotation or twisting about an axis, as of a tap's handle.^[9][4]
4. A change of position by turning round; turning something over or inside out, such as a garment.^[9][4]
5. (regional) The castration of young bulls and rams by twisting.^[4][5]
6. (obsolete) A spiritual conversion.^[5][8]

Related words

• întoarce
• toarce
• întors

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Wikționar (Romanian Wiktionary), ro.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 556
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1255
5. ^ 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. întoarcere
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1254
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Gaster, M. (1891), Chrestomatie română: texte tipărite și manuscrise (sec. XVI–XIX), dialectale și populare, cu o introducere, gramatică și un glosar româno-francez, vol. II, Leipzig: Brockhaus / București: Socec, p. s.v. întoarcere
9. ^ a b c d e Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 670
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 701
11. ^ 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. întoarcere
12. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. s.v. întoarcere
13. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 317