deștepta

Forms

a deștepta (third-person singular present deșteaptă, past participle deșteptat, third-person subjunctive deștepte), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

Its Latin source is disputed.^[2] Ciorănescu, the DLR and DEX 2009 take it as inherited from Latin dispectō (“to consider, examine”), a frequentative of dispiciō (“to look about, discern”), which is formed from dis- and speciō (“to look”).^[3][4][5][1] The sense would have passed from “to open the eyes” to “to wake up”, and the regular outcome, with ⟨șp⟩, would have been changed by assimilation, as in aștepta from aspectō.^[3][2] This view goes back to Candrea; it is supported by the adjective deștept, which may continue the participle dispectus.^[2] Its Romance reflexes, Italian dispettare, Catalan despitar and Spanish despechar, mean “to vex”, which Ciorănescu puts down to a separate development from despiciō.^[3]

The older and still widespread view is Vulgar Latin *deexcitō (“to rouse from sleep”), from excitō (“to rouse, wake”), the source of Italian destare and Dalmatian destruar.^[6][7][2][8] Candrea and Densusianu, the REW and Papahagi accept it and explain the ⟨pt⟩ by the same influence.^[2][7] Ciorănescu finds its phonetics hard to explain.^[3] Tiktin prefers Vulgar Latin *disperrectō and gives that etymon only as an alternative, and Scriban suggested Latin dēspectō.^[2][9]

The verb survives south of the Danube: Aromanian dishteptu and Megleno-Romanian diștet.^[3][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel book of 1551–1553, with the sense “to wake from sleep”: in Matthew 8:25 the disciples wake Jesus in the boat.^[2][9] Coresi's homiliary of 1581 has „să ne deșteptăm și să ne nevoim, ca să nu ne afle pre noi mirele adurmiți” “let us wake and strive, so that the bridegroom does not find us asleep”.^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

Waking from sleep is the oldest and still the basic sense.^[2][5] In church language it also meant “to rise or raise from the dead”, and figuratively it came to mean coming out of inertia, indifference or ignorance.^[2][12] Feelings and ideas can “wake” too: they arise or break out.^[5] From the sense of becoming aware grew “to become wiser, smarter”, which matches the adjective deștept, first recorded in 1731 as “awake” and today “intelligent”.^[2][5][1] Wiktionary marks the plain sense “to wake up” as literary today, trezi being the usual word.^[1]

Timeline

• 1551–1553 – in the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel book, the first record.^[2][9]
• 1581 – să ne deșteptăm in Coresi's homiliary.^[4][12]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – deșteptară “they woke (him)” in the Bucharest Bible, Matthew 8:25.^[14]
• 1731 – the adjective deștept “awake”, in Nicolae Costin.^[2]
• 1835 – deșteptăciune “intelligence”.^[2]
• 1910 – the noun deșteptat in Caragiale.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive and transitive) To wake or awaken from sleep.^[5][1]
2. (reflexive and transitive) To come or bring out of lethargy, numbness or reverie; by extension, to come or bring back to life.^[5][12]
3. (reflexive, of feelings, wishes, ideas) To arise, appear, break out.^[5]
4. (reflexive) To become aware of something, to realise how things are; to become cleverer.^[5][1]

Word family

• deștept
• deșteptat
• deșteptăciune
• deșteptător
• deșteptare

Related words

• aștepta
• trezi
• Aromanian dishteptu

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. deștepta
3. ^ 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. deștepta
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. deștepta
5. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 303
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2515
7. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 528
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 291
9. ^ 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. deștepta
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 403
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 113
12. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 681
13. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. deștepta
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mt 8:25