bătaie

Forms

bătaie f (plural bătăi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin battālia (“fencing exercise”), the popular form of battuālia, from battuō (“to beat”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Cassiodorus already noted the popular form beside the classical one.^[6][7] In Latin the word named exercises with arms; in Romanian it became the ordinary abstract noun of the verb bate “to beat”.^[8]

DELR gives Aromanian bãtalje “fulling mill” and Megleno-Romanian “beating” as the forms south of the Danube.^[3] It is the same Latin word as Italian battaglia, French bataille, Spanish batalla, Portuguese batalha and Albanian bëtajë.^[2][9] Romanian later borrowed the Italian word through Greek as bătălie “battle”, so the two are etymological doublets.^{[3][10][11][1]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in Coresi's Apostol of 1563;^[6][3] DELR dates it to 1566, also in Coresi.^[6][3] In the 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons it glosses Slavonic words for “beating” and “wounds from blows”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Beside “beating, blows”, the old language used the word for a fight, a battle and even a war, and for a punishment sent by God; the sense “battle” is now archaic.^[8][5][1] From the regular blows of an object came the beat of wings, the heartbeat and the throb of a motor.^[5][8] A shot “reaches” a target, so bătaie also became the range of a weapon, and of the eye.^[5][2] With wind, rain or sun it names the blowing, the falling or the glare, and among hunters a battue, the driving of game.^[5][8]

Many phrases are built on it: bătaie de cap “worry, trouble”, bătaie de joc “mockery” and a pune la bătaie “to put at stake”.^[5] A proverb holds that bătaia e ruptă din rai “beating is a piece of paradise”, that is, it does one good.^[6]

Timeline

• 1563 – in Coresi's Apostol, the first record.^[6]
• 1566 – in another print of Coresi.^[3]
• 1660 – a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon glosses Slavonic биение “beating” with it.^[12]
• 1688 – frequent in the Bucharest Bible, also in the plural bătăi.^[13]
• 1802–1803 – bătăios “quarrelsome”.^[3]
• 1822 – the diminutive bătăiță, in Bobb's dictionary.^[3]
• 1857 – bătăiaș “beater at a hunt”, in Polizu.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A beating: repeated blows given to someone with the hand or an object; a fight in which people hit each other.^[5][4][1]
2. (sport) The take-off: the stamp of the foot on the ground or the springboard before a jump.^[5]
3. (archaic) A battle; a bombardment by artillery.^[5]
4. A repeated striking of one thing against another: the beat of wings, the stroke of the batten on a loom, a knock at the door.^[5][1]
5. A beat of the heart or of the pulse; the rhythmic noise of a running motor.^[5]
6. The range of a gun, an arrow or another missile; the path of a shot; by extension the reach of the eye.^[5][1]
7. With natural phenomena: the blowing of the wind, the falling of rain or hail, the glare of the sun, light.^[5]
8. A battue: the beating of the woods to drive out game; the mating season of the capercaillie.^[5]
9. (regional) The short, rhythmic barking of dogs.^[5]

Word family

• bătăiaș
• bătăios

Related words

• bate
• bătălie
• bătăuș
• Aromanian bãtalje

Usage notes

Fixed expressions include a lua la bătaie “to start beating”, a da bătaie “to hurry someone” (colloquial) and cu bătaie “a little over the exact weight”: A cântărit brânza cu bătaie.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. bătaie
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. bate
4. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 186
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 96
6. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. bătaie
7. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 316
8. ^ 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. bătaie
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 995
10. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 20
11. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 68
12. ^ 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. bătaie
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. A doua leage 25:2