așteptare

Forms

așteptare f (plural așteptări)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Romanian aștepta + -re, the long infinitive of the verb used as an abstract noun.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The verb is inherited from Vulgar Latin *astectō, an assimilated form of Latin aspectō (“to look at attentively”), which in popular Latin took on the sense of exspectō (“to wait for”).^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Coresi's Psalter of 1570, with așteptarea in Psalm 118 (119); the Ciobanu psalter and Coresi's later psalters repeat it.^[8] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană of the 16th century for the same psalm.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word also meant “patience”: Tiktin quotes it so from Varlaam's Cazania, and the DA quotes a Psalter of 1651 where Coresi had răbdarea and the Bible of 1688 îngăduința, both “patience”.^[3][2] The negative neașteptare meant “impatience” in a Molitvenic.^[3] The Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the 17th century use it from 1649 to gloss Slavonic words for “expectation”.^[9]

The modern sense “expectation, hope” is in Tiktin and Scriban, and the phrase a înșela așteptările “to disappoint expectations”.^[3][10] The DA explains sală de așteptare “waiting room” and a fi în așteptare “to be waiting impatiently” as modelled on French salle d'attente and être dans l'expectative.^[2]

Timeline

• 1570 – așteptarea in Coresi's Psalter (Psalm 118).^[8]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[9]
• 1688 – several times in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of waiting for someone or something, and its result.^[5][4]
2. expectation, hope of something to come.^[3][10]
3. (dated) The granting of time to someone to pay a debt or keep a promise.^[4]
4. (obsolete) patience.^[3][2]

Related words

• aștepta

Usage notes

Peste așteptări and sub așteptări mean “unexpectedly good” and “unexpectedly poor”.^[5] Sală de așteptare is a waiting room.^[2][10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. așteptare
3. ^ 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. așteptare
4. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 119
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 70
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. aștepta
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. aștepta
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
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 133
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition)