apleca

Forms

apleca (third-person singular present apleacă, past participle aplecat, third-person subjunctive aplece), first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin applicō (“to attach, apply; to bring a ship to land”).^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} The Latin verb is formed from ad- and plicō (“to fold”).^[1] DELR holds that on its way into Romanian it took over the sense of the simple verb, “to fold, to bend”.^[2]

The verb survives south of the Danube: Aromanian aplec and Megleno-Romanian plicari.^[2][3][7] The other Romance languages kept it with other senses: Catalan aplegar (“to gather; to arrive”), Spanish allegar (“to gather, bring near”), Portuguese achegar (“to bring near”) and Old French aployer.^[2][3] The neologism aplica is a doublet.^[1]

Ciorănescu explains the sense “to suckle” as short for a phrase meaning “to put to the breast”, as Tiktin does, and finds the sense “to feel sick” harder to explain.^[3][8] DELR traces the sense “to be inclined to” to French pencher and German neigen, and the rare sense “to apply” in the Latinist writers to the Latin verb itself.^[2] Ukrainian borrowed the suckling sense as плекати (plekaty, “to suckle”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the verb from the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[2] Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Gospel book of 1561.^[2][8] The suckling sense is well attested in the 17th century: the Moldavian law code speaks of „mamce, carele apleacă prunci mici” “wet nurses who suckle small children”.^[9] Dosoftei's verse psalter has „aplecat de maică-mea-n păcate” “suckled by my mother in sins”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The main sense is bending or lowering something toward the ground, and, reflexively, bending down or bowing.^[5][4] The DA notes that a apleca differs from pleca in marking the direction toward something lower, through the prefix a-.^[10] The suckling sense is now popular and regional (Moldavia, Banat, Crișana, Transylvania).^[5][9] The impersonal mi se apleacă “I feel sick” first meant an upset stomach after food, then being sick of a dish eaten too often.^[8][4]

Romanian formed several derivatives: aplecător “one who suckles, foster parent” from 1648, aplecătură “suckling; nausea” from about 1650, aplecăciune “inclination” from 1799, and aplecuș, both “slope” (1887) and “suckling lamb” (1908).^[2] The popular phrase se apleacă ziua means “evening is coming”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2]
• 1561 – Coresi's Gospel book (Luke 21:23).^[8]
• 1648 – aplecător in the New Testament.^[2]
• c. 1650 – aplecătură in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[2]
• 1673 – aplecat “suckled” in Dosoftei's verse psalter.^[8]
• 1682 – the noun aplecat in Dosoftei.^[2]
• 1799 – aplecăciune “inclination”.^[2]
• 1887 – aplecuș “slope”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bend or lower something toward the ground; reflexive, to bend down, stoop, bow; figuratively, to submit.^[5][4][1]
2. (popular) To suckle, to breastfeed.^[5][9][1]
3. (reflexive, figurative) To feel drawn to something, to incline toward it; to take an interest in someone or something.^[5][4]
4. (reflexive, impersonal, with a dative) a i se apleca: to get indigestion, to feel sick: I s-a aplecat de atâta smântână.^[5][4]

Word family

• aplecat
• aplecăciune
• aplecătură
• aplecuș
• aplecușat
• aplecător

Related words

• pleca
• aplica
• Aromanian aplec

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. apleca
3. ^ a b c d 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. apleca
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 80
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 54
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 548
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 119
8. ^ 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. apleca
9. ^ a b c Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 52
10. ^ 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. apleca