cumpăra

Forms

cumpăra (third-person singular present cumpără, past participle cumpărat, third-person subjunctive cumpere), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin comparō (“to prepare, procure; to buy”), a verb formed with con- on parō (“to prepare, procure”).^[2][3][4][1] Latin already used it in the sense “to buy”, and that is the sense it has kept in every Romance language.^[2][5] The classical verb for buying, Latin emō, left no Romance descendant.^[6]

Ciorănescu derives the word from the Latin verb with a short /a/, ⟨compărāre⟩, following Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu and the REW, and finds Vulgar Latin *comperāre, proposed by Diez and Densusianu, less likely.^[7] Wiktionary starts from that Vulgar Latin form.^[1] The REW notes that the western Romance forms seem to rest on it, while the eastern ones cannot decide between the two.^[6]

The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian acumpãr, Megleno-Romanian cumpur and Istro-Romanian cumpru.^[7][8][9] Its Romance cognates include Italian comprare, Sardinian comporare, Old French comperer, Occitan comprar, Catalan comprar, Spanish comprar and Portuguese comprar.^[7][6][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1551–1553, in the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel book, at Matthew 13:44, where the verb means “to buy”.^[2][11] Coresi's Gospel of the 1560s has „Ucenicii trimiși era să cumpere bucate” “the disciples had been sent to buy food”, and a document of 1579 says „Tot cât avu vându, și cumpără satul acela” “he sold all he had and bought that village”.^[12] MDA2's first record is Coresi's homily book of 1581, where the verb means “to redeem”.^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

Besides buying, the old language used the verb for redeeming (Coresi: „Omul slava cu lucrul o cumpără” “man buys glory with his deeds”) and for weighing up a person's worth, as in the saying nu se cumpără omul pe căciulă “a man is not valued by his cap”.^[12][2] From paying for something came the senses “to win over with money, to bribe” and, in the literary language, “to obtain at a high price, with great effort”.^[2][13][14]

The prefixed verbs are recorded as early as the simple one: descumpăra and scumpăra “to redeem” appear in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of about 1500, răscumpăra in Ureche's chronicle of 1642–1647.^[2] The DELR takes the rare old preacumpăra “to buy back” as a model of Slavonic prěkupiti.^[2] The nouns cumpărător “buyer” and cumpărătoare “purchase” date from 1561, cumpărătură “purchase, shopping” from 1591.^[2]

Timeline

• 1551–1553 – cumpăra “to buy” in the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel book, the first record.^[2][11]
• 1561 – cumpărător and cumpărătoare in Coresi's Gospel book.^[2]
• 1579 – „cumpără satul acela” “he bought that village” in a document.^[12]
• 1581 – cumpăra “to redeem” in Coresi's homily book, MDA2's first record.^[4]
• 1591 – cumpărătură “purchase”.^[2]
• 1642–1647 – răscumpăra “to buy back, redeem” in Ureche's chronicle.^[2]
• 1688 – cumpăra throughout the Bucharest Bible.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To buy, to purchase: to come into possession of something by paying its price.^[14][4][1]
2. (figurative) To win someone over with money, to bribe.^[14][2]
3. (literary, figurative) To obtain something at great cost or with great effort.^[2][4][13]
4. (obsolete) To redeem.^[4][12]
5. (obsolete) To judge the worth of a person.^[2][12]

Word family

• cumpărare
• cumpărat
• cumpărător
• cumpărătoare
• cumpărătură
• descumpăra
• răscumpăra
• răscumpărător
• scumpăra

Related words

• Aromanian acumpãr
• Latin comparō

Usage notes

The stem vowel alternates in the present: cumpăr, cumperi, cumpără, subjunctive să cumpere.^[11] Cum am cumpărat-o, așa o vând “as I bought it, so I sell it” means “I am repeating what I was told”.^[14][11] A cumpăra vreme is to gain time.^[4][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. cumpăra
3. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ 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, 571
5. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2094
7. ^ 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. cumpăra
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 54
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 12
10. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cumpăra
12. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cumpăra
13. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească
14. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 260
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 41:57