coperi

Forms

coperi (third-person singular present coperă, past participle coperit, third-person subjunctive copere), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cooperiō (“to cover completely”), formed from co- and operiō (“to cover, close”).^[2][3][4][1] It is the older form of acoperi, which adds a prothetic ⟨a-⟩;^[2] DER notes that the two have had about the same currency.^[2] DELR gives two views of that ⟨a-⟩: the Latin prefix ad-, in Vulgar Latin *accooperiō, or a prothetic vowel added to the shorter form.^[3]

The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian acoapir, Megleno-Romanian cupirés and Istro-Romanian coper.^[2][5] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian koprer, Italian coprire, Occitan cobrir, Catalan cobrir, French couvrir, Spanish cubrir and Portuguese cobrir.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The form coperi is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century (Psalm 103:10), with the sense “to cover”.^[6][3] Coresi's psalters of 1570 and 1577 have it in several psalms.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Besides “to cover”, the old texts use it for “to hide, keep secret”, “to protect, shelter” and “to prevent”.^[8][9] Ciorănescu adds “to vouch for, guarantee” and the reflexive “to cover oneself, put on one's hat”.^[2] The form with a- gradually became the standard one, and coperi was left to popular and poetic language: Șăineanu marks it as poetic and quotes Alecsandri, „vărsând văpaie lină ce lumea coperea” “pouring a soft blaze that covered the world”.^[10][9] DLRLC and MDA2 send the reader to acoperi.^[11][12]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – coperi in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[6][3]
• c. 1551-1558 – copere and coperiși in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[13]
• 1570 – the noun coperit “covering” in Coresi's Psalter.^[3]
• 1581 – coperiș “roof” in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[3]
• 1872 – the diminutive coperioară “lid”, a hapax in Baronzi.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (dated, popular) To cover; the older form of acoperi.^[1][12][9]
2. (dated) To hide, keep out of sight or pass over in silence.^[2][8]
3. (dated) To protect, shelter.^[8][9]
4. (reflexive, dated) To cover oneself, put on one's hat.^[2]

Related words

• acoperi
• coperământ
• descoperi
• Aromanian acoapir

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. coperi
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. acoperi
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2205
5. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 53
6. ^ 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 103:10
7. ^ 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 68:10
8. ^ a b c 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. coperi
9. ^ a b c d Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. coperi
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 166
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 545
12. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 503
13. ^ 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 103:3