beat

Forms

beat m or n (feminine singular beată, masculine plural beți, feminine/neuter plural bete)^[1] In Moldavia the word is bat, feminine bată: Neculce tells of a buffalo herder who, „fiind bat”, “being drunk”, began to laugh in the middle of the market.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin bibitus (“drunk”), the past participle of bibō (“to drink”).^{[5][6][4][7][8][9]} The same participle gave Spanish beodo and Portuguese bêbado.^[6][8] The Latin verb comes from Proto-Indo-European *píph₃eti.^[1][10]

The diphthong ⟨ea⟩ of the masculine is unexpected, and its explanation is disputed: the regular result would have been ⟨bet⟩.^[5][8] Candrea and Densusianu and Tiktin explain it by the influence of the infinitive bea “to drink”, which DELR doubts, since Megleno-Romanian has no short infinitive and the verb's own forms have ⟨e⟩.^[5][3] Scriban derives the masculine from the feminine ⟨beată⟩ with the help of its opposite treaz “sober”.^[11] Pascu also started from a reformed masculine, a view Ciorănescu rejects because Romanian alternations do not work that way.^[6] Pușcariu expected a form like preot and proposed a participle *bibātus.^[5] DELR itself allows a regular development from a three-syllable form with an open ⟨e⟩, as in freamăt from fremitus and geamăt from gemitus.^[5]

The word survives in Megleno-Romanian bęt and Istro-Romanian bęt.^{[5][6][12][13][14]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, dated by DELR to about 1500, with the sense “drunk”.^[5] Coresi's psalter of 1570 and the Psaltirea Scheiană have the word at Psalm 106:27, where those at sea are compared to a drunk man.^[15][3] MDA2 gives Coresi's Psalter of 1577 as its first record.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Besides the plain sense, the word has long been used figuratively for someone overcome by a strong, usually pleasant feeling: beat de bucurie “drunk with joy”, beat de trufie “drunk with pride”.^[2][9] Beat de cap means “dazed, confused”.^[2][4] Colloquial speech has many intensifiers, such as beat mort, beat turtă and beat cuc “dead drunk”, and many synonyms for the early stages of drunkenness.^[2][3] A proverb runs „dacă doi ți-or zice că ești beat, du-te de te culcă” “if two people tell you that you are drunk, go to bed”.^[3]

The derivatives are old: beție “drunkenness” and bețiv “drunkard” appear in Coresi's law book of 1560–1561.^[5] For bețiv DELR gives two views: a Latin *bibitivus (Candrea and Densusianu, Pascu, DEX), or beat with the suffix -iu (DA, Scriban, Ciorănescu), its final ⟨-v⟩ perhaps under the influence of Old Church Slavonic пиꙗнивъ (pijanivŭ, “drunkard”).^[5][6]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – beat in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[5]
• 1551–1553 – bețiț “drunkard” in the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel.^[5]
• 1560–1561 – beție and bețiv in Coresi's law book.^[5]
• 1570 – beatul at Psalm 106:27 in a psalter of Coresi.^[15]
• 1577 – Coresi's Psalter, MDA2's first record.^[4]
• 1688 – „o socoti pre ea Ili ca o beată” “Eli took her for a drunk woman” in the Bucharest Bible.^[2][16]
• 1872 – bețivan “sot”.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. drunk, intoxicated with alcohol;^[9][4] beat mort “dead drunk”.^[9][4]
2. (figurative) Overwhelmed, carried away by a very pleasant feeling;^[9][4] beat de fericire “drunk with happiness”.^[9][4]
3. (colloquial) beat de cap: dazed, confused.^[4][2]

Word family

• beție
• bețiț
• bețivan
• bețivi
• dezbăta
• îmbăta
• îmbătător
• bețiv

Related words

• bea
• băut
• Latin bibō

Usage notes

A separate word, pronounced /bit/, is borrowed from English beat: an invariable adjective “of the beatniks; of a style of rock music”, recorded from 1978, and a noun “(music) beat, strong beat of a bar”.^{[9][5][17][18]} Ciorănescu also lists a rare adjective beat “blessed”, from French béat.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. beat
3. ^ 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. beat
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 193
5. ^ 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. beat
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. beat
7. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 16
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1080
9. ^ 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. 98
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 161
12. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 73
13. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
14. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 92
15. ^ 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 106:27
16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 1 Kings 1:13
17. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. beat
18. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. beat