citi

Forms

citi (third-person singular present citește, past participle citit) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic читати (čitati, “to read”), a verb formed on чисти (čisti, “to count, reckon; to read”).^[2][3][4][1] This Old Church Slavonic verb meant “to count”, “to read” and also “to honour”, and Ciorănescu takes cinsti from it as well.^[5][2] Behind it are Proto-Slavic *čitati and *čisti, which Wiktionary traces to Proto-Indo-European *kʷeyt-;^[6][1] Derksen reconstructs it with an optional s-mobile and compares Latvian šķist (“to think, suppose”).^[6][1]

The Old Romanian variant ceti remains in Moldavia and Transylvania, and DELR also records an old spelling ⟨čăti⟩.^[7][3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1561.^[3] MDA2 cites the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), and Tiktin a gloss in the same manuscript.^[8][7] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses both ceti and citi: citi in Joshua 8:34, ceti in Exodus 24:7.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Old Church Slavonic gave Romanian only the sense “to read”, not “to count” or “to honour”.^[2][3] From it came the reading aloud of church texts, the reading of a score, a map or an instrument's dial, and the figurative “to read someone's thoughts in his face”: a citi în ochii cuiva, a citi printre rânduri “to read between the lines”.^[4][8][7] Another figurative sense is “to study, to educate oneself through books”.^[4] Tiktin compares a-i citi cuiva “to lecture someone” with German die Leviten lesen.^[7]

Romanian took several derivatives straight from Old Church Slavonic: citanie “reading” (1563–1583) and citeț “reader” (1580–1602).^[3][2] Others were formed in Romanian: citit “reading” (1581), cititor “reader” (1620), citeală (1719–1722), and reciti (1847).^[3]

Timeline

• 1561 – first record.^[3]
• c. 1563–1583 – “to read” in the Codicele Voronețean;^[8][3] citanie “reading” in the same years.^[8][3]
• 1581 – the noun citit “reading”.^[3]
• 1620 – cititor “reader”.^[3]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible has ceti and citi.^[10]
• 1691–1697 – citeț “legible”.^[3]
• 1847 – reciti “to reread”.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To read: to go through a written text, aloud or silently, to learn what it says; to read aloud to others; to read a score, a map or the dial of a meter.^[4][8]
2. (figurative) To discover someone's thoughts or feelings from their face or bearing: I-am citit teama în ochi.^[4][8]
3. To study; to educate oneself by reading: A citit mult în tinerețe.^[4]
4. (church) To recite religious texts at a service.^[8]
5. In expressions: a citi în stele “to foretell the future from the stars”;^[4] a citi în palmă “to read someone's palm”.^[4]

Word family

• citanie
• citeală
• citeț
• citit
• cititor
• neciteț
• răsciti
• reciti
• citire

Related words

• cinsti
• Old Church Slavonic чисти (čisti)

Usage notes

The variant ceti is regional (Moldavia, Transylvania) and popular.^[7][4] The phrase a citi printre rânduri means “to read between the lines”.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. citi
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. citi
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 189
5. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
6. ^ a b Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ 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. citi
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 416
9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Joshua 8:34
10. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Exodus 24:7
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. citi