chipeș

Forms

chipeș m or n (feminine singular chipeșă, masculine plural chipeși, feminine/neuter plural chipeșe)^[1] Old texts also have the variant chipiș: „om mare la trup, cinstiș, chipiș, la minte așezat” “a man tall of body, honourable, handsome, settled in mind”.^[2][3] Klein's dictionary of 1801 spells it Chipeșu and glosses it Latin speciosus.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Hungarian képes, as the DA, MDA2, DELR, DEX and the DLRLV give it.^{[2][5][6][7][3][1]} DEX glosses the Hungarian word “capable”, the DA “capable; with images, figurative”.^[7][2] Tamás explains the Romanian sense by older Hungarian, where the word also meant “beautiful, shapely”, as Treml and Asbóth had shown.^[8] The Hungarian historical dictionary records “fitting, proper” from 1568 and “beautiful, well-shaped” from 1598; the word is kép (“shape, form”) with the adjective suffix -s.^[9][1]

Mândrescu took it for a purely Romanian formation, since he knew the Hungarian word only as “capable”, and Pascu also analysed it as chip with the suffix -eș.^[8] Tiktin derives it from the same noun and compares the Hungarian word.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and DELR date the first record to 1612, in a document published in the DIR collection.^[10][6] The oldest sense is “fitting, decent”: Tamás places the records from the beginning of the 17th century, and the Caransebeș glossary renders Kipish with Latin conveniens.^[8][2] A sermon on purity written before 1618 lists it among the virtues a priest should have, beside “sober” and “clean”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “decent, proper”, now obsolete, belonged to the Banat; in Moldavia the word meant “good-looking”, as in Dosoftei's Viața și petrecerea sfinților (1682–1686): „Voinici chipeși” “handsome young men”.^[3][5][2] This second sense is the one that survives: a well-built, handsome man, in Ispirescu and folk poetry.^[2][11]

By extension it was used of animals, things and a person's bearing: Cantemir speaks of fruit „arătoase şi chipeşe” on the outside, Sbiera of a proud horse, Duiliu Zamfirescu of a fine house.^[2] NODEX labels the word popular.^[12]

Timeline

• 1612 – the first record, in a document.^[10][6]
• before 1618 – “decent, proper”, in a sermon on purity.^[2]
• 1682–1686 – chipeși “handsome” in Dosoftei's lives of the saints.^[5][2]
• 1703 – the synonym chipos, formed on chip.^[6]
• 1801 – Chipeșu “speciosus” in Klein's dictionary.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of people: handsome, well-built, good-looking: un tânăr înalt și chipeș.^[7][5]
2. Of animals and things: fine, stately.^[2][11]
3. (obsolete) Fitting, decent, proper.^[5][2]

Related words

• chip
• chipos
• arătos
• Hungarian képes

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. chipeș
3. ^ a b c Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
4. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 333
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 385
6. ^ a b c d 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. chip
7. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 180
8. ^ a b c Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó
9. ^ Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó
10. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. chipeș
11. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional