certa

Forms

certa (third-person singular present ceartă, past participle certat, third-person subjunctive certe) first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin certō (“to contend, fight”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DELR describes the Latin verb as a frequentative of cernō (“to sift, decide”), first meaning “to seek a decision, to debate”.^[2] The DA notes that Latin used it for fighting with words as well as with arms, and that Romanian kept this sense of verbal combat and made the verb reflexive.^[6] The senses “to scold, to punish” are found only in Romanian and Albanian, which has a related verb.^[2][3]

The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian ntsertu, Megleno-Romanian țertu and Istro-Romanian certå.^[7][3][2] Romance has it only in Sardinian kertare and in the old language of Italy, Italian certare.^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the verb to about 1567.^[2] Tiktin cites the Codicele Voronețean (1 Peter), and MDA2 dates it to Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581, which has „să ne certămă” “that we should quarrel”.^[5][9][6] The old texts already have both the reflexive “to quarrel” and the transitive “to rebuke, to punish”.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

The transitive “to scold, rebuke” is old: in the 1688 Bible (Matthew 8:26) the winds and the sea are rebuked.^[5] The old language also used it for “to punish”: the chronicler Amiras writes that some were punished with death and others with prison.^[5] The punishing sense is now archaic, kept in elevated style, as in Eminescu.^[5][4] An old reflexive meant “to learn one's lesson”.^[6][3]

The everyday senses today are “to quarrel” and “to scold”.^[4] The noun ceartă “quarrel” is a back-formation from the verb, dated about 1500;^[2] Ciorănescu thinks it may be older than Romanian, since Albanian has a matching noun.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 1567 – the verb certa, and the noun certat “quarrelling”.^[2]
• 1581 – să ne certămă “to quarrel” in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[9][6]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon uses cert to gloss a Slavonic verb for punishing.^[10]
• 1650 – certătură “quarrel”.^[2]
• 1693 – certător “quarrelsome”.^[2]
• 1857 – certăreț “quarrelsome”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive, reciprocal) To quarrel, to argue loudly and heatedly with someone.^[4][1]
2. (reflexive) To fall out with someone, to break off a friendship.^[4][9]
3. (transitive) To scold, to rebuke.^[4][1]
4. (transitive, dated) To punish.^[4][5]

Word family

• ceartă
• certaș
• certător
• certătură
• certăreț

Related words

• sfădi
• încăiera
• mustra
• cerne
• Aromanian ntsertu
• Latin certō

Usage notes

A fi certat cu morala and a fi certat cu justiția describe someone who keeps breaking moral rules or the law.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. certa
3. ^ 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. certa
4. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 173
5. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. certa
6. ^ 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. certa
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 786
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1840
9. ^ 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, 366
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. cert