întuneca

Forms

întuneca (third-person singular present întunecă, past participle întunecat) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *intunicō (“to cover with a tunic”), from Latin tunica (“tunic”).^[2][3][4][1] Byhan proposed it, and Densusianu, Weigand, Pușcariu, Candrea and Spitzer followed.^[2][5] The sense moved from covering the sky with clouds to any darkening, as Spanish encapotarse “to cloud over” comes from capote (“cloak”).^[2][4] The verb also lives in Aromanian ãntunic and Megleno-Romanian antunic.^[2][6][1] Italian intonicare and Spanish entunicar have other senses.^[2]

The link with întuneric “darkness”, from Latin tenebricus, is still not settled.^[2] The Lexicon de la Buda, Tiktin, Pascu and Ivănescu hold that the verb is a shortened form of the old verb întunereca.^[2][5] Ciorănescu finds this unlikely.^[2] Giuglea's Vulgar Latin *innocticō and Drăganu's *intonicō (“to begin to thunder”) are rejected by Ciorănescu and Graur on phonetic grounds.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coresi's Psalter of 1570 has întunecă in Psalm 104.^[8] The Psaltirea Scheiană has the subjunctive înturearece.^[5] MDA2's first record is Coresi's homily book of 1581.^[9] The first sense is “grow dark”, said of the sun, the moon and the sky.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old texts use the verb for an eclipse: a chronicle notes that on 12 September the sun was darkened for more than a quarter of an hour.^[5][4] From the darkening of the sky came the impersonal se întunecă “night falls”.^[3][9] Figurative senses followed: wealth or greed darkens the mind, a face grows gloomy, and one thing outshines another.^[5][3] The folk saying Care mânecă, nu întunecă means that whoever sets out early gets back before dark.^[9]

Timeline

• 1570 – întunecă in Coresi's Psalter.^[8]
• c. 1573–1578 – the subjunctive înturearece in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[5]
• 1581 – Coresi's homily book, MDA2's first record.^[9]
• 1649 – the participle întunecat “dark” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – întuneca in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, reflexive) To darken, make or grow dark.^[3][1]
2. (reflexive, impersonal) To grow dark at nightfall.^[3][1]
3. (reflexive, of heavenly bodies) To lose brightness, be eclipsed;^[3] (figurative, transitive) to overshadow;^[3] (reflexive) to lose clarity of mind.^[3]
4. (figurative, transitive, reflexive) To make or become gloomy or sad.^[3]
5. (reflexive) To grow darker in colour.^[3]

Word family

• întunecător
• întunecos
• întunecime
• întunecăciune
• întunecare
• întunecat

Related words

• întuneric
• Aromanian ãntunic
• Latin tunica

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. întuneca
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 558
4. ^ a b c d 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. întuneca
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. întuneca
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 588
7. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1963), Etimologii romînești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. întuneca
8. ^ 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 104:27
9. ^ 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, 1261
10. ^ 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. întunecat
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 138:11