cugeta

Forms

cugeta (third-person singular present cugetă, past participle cugetat), first conjugation^[1] Old texts also have a present cugetez.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cōgitō (“to think”), from con- and agitō (“to drive, stir; to turn over in the mind”), from agō (“to drive”).^[3][4][5][6] Its Romance cognates include Old French cuidier, Spanish cuidar, Portuguese cuidar and the old Italian coitare, most of them with the sense “to believe” or “to take care”.^[4][7] Albanian kujtoj (“to remember, think”) is a loan of the same Latin verb.^[4][1]

The noun cuget is a back-formation from the verb in DELR's account.^[3] Ciorănescu thinks it could also be a Romance formation, comparing the noun of Lecce dialect, Spanish cuita and Galician coita.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, with cugeta (Psalm 140:4) and cugetară “they thought” (Psalm 9:23).^[8][9][3] The sense there is to ponder and to plan in one's mind, often with întru sine or întru minte “in oneself, in the mind”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the verb meant to meditate, to have something in mind, to plan and to devise;^[2] a cugeta sfaturi was to plot, and a cugeta bine or rău cuiva to wish someone well or ill.^[2][11] It also meant to reckon or calculate, a sense now obsolete.^[3] Tiktin notes that the construction a cugeta ceva “to think of something” in 19th-century writers follows French songer.^[11]

The DA records that the verb was kept in Transylvania as the everyday synonym of gândi, which had almost wholly replaced it in Wallachia and Moldavia; in the literary language it now means deep, sustained thought.^[10][5] Its family grew early: cuget “thought, mind” and necugetat “thoughtless” appear in the same psalter, cugetător in 1566 and cugetare “thought, maxim” in 1559–1560.^[3] Precugeta “to premeditate” was formed in 1827 on the model of French préméditer.^[3][4]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – cugeta, cuget and necugetat in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8][3]
• 1559–1560 – cugetare “thought” in the Codex Bratul.^[3]
• 1566 – cugetător “thinker” in Coresi.^[3]
• 1570 – cugetai “I considered” in Coresi's Psalter (Psalm 118:59).^[12]
• 1679 – cugetăreț “thoughtful man, philosopher” in Dosoftei.^[3]
• 1703–1709 – necugetare “rashness” in Nicolae Costin.^[3]
• 1827 – precugeta “to premeditate”, after French préméditer.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To follow a thought, to meditate, to ponder; to think: Bătrânul cugeta la cele spuse de fiul său.^[5][2]
2. (reflexive, rare) To deliberate, to weigh something up.^[5]
3. To realise; to take into account, to consider.^[5][2]
4. (obsolete) To devise, to plan; to reckon.^[2][3]

Word family

• cuget
• cugetare
• cugetăcios
• cugetăreț
• necugetare
• necugetat
• precugeta
• precugetare
• cugetător

Related words

• gândi

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 565
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. cugeta
4. ^ a b c d e 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. cugeta
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 256
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2027
8. ^ 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 140:4
9. ^ 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 9:23
10. ^ a b 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. cugetá
11. ^ 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. cugetá
12. ^ 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 118:59