chinui

Forms

chinui (third-person singular present chinuiește or chinuie, past participle chinuit), 4th conjugation^[1] An old variant is chenui.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian chin + -ui.^[4][2][3][1] The noun chin (“torture, pain”) is from Hungarian kín (“pain, torment”), a loan the Romanian sources date to the 15th century or earlier.^[5][6][7] An older view of Roesler took it from a Turkish word for “hatred”.^[5] The Hungarian word, recorded from the 12th century, is itself an early loan from a Turkic language.^[8][9]

Transylvanian also has chinzui, taken directly from the Hungarian verb kínoz (“to torture”).^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, in the form chinuiră “they tormented” (Psalms 16:10 and 104:18).^[10][2] Tiktin's first record is in the Psaltirea Scheiană, and MDA2's in the Codicele Voronețean.^[11][3]

Semantic evolution

From “to torture” the verb came to mean causing moral suffering, and then simply annoying or boring someone.^[3][4] Intransitive, it meant “to suffer torments”, as in Varlaam's chinuiesc într-această pară de foc “I suffer in this flame of fire”; the reflexive a se chinui came to mean “to toil, to try hard”.^[11][4] MDA2 records the phrase a-și chinui trupul “to mortify one's body” in the sense of doing penance.^[3] The Bible of 1688 uses its forms often.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – chinuiră in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10][2]
• c. 1563-1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3]
• 1649 – the agent noun and adjective chinuitor.^[2]
• 1660 – chinui and chinuit in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1691-1697 – the noun chinuială.^[2]
• 1862 – chinuitoare “instrument of torture”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To cause or to endure intense physical or moral suffering; to torture, torment.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To annoy or bore someone: Nu mă mai chinui cu întrebările tale.^[4][3]
3. (reflexive) To strive, to toil at something: S-a chinuit o oră să deschidă ușa.^[4][1]

Word family

• chinuire
• chinuitor
• chinuială

Related words

• chin
• chinzui

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. chinui
3. ^ 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, 383
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 179
5. ^ 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. chin
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. chin
7. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. chin
8. ^ Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 2, 491
9. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó, p. s.v. kín
10. ^ 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 16:10
11. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. chinui
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ieșirea 1:14
13. ^ 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. chinui