des

Forms

des m or n (feminine singular deasă, masculine plural deși, feminine/neuter plural dese)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dēnsus (“dense; frequent”), from Proto-Indo-European *dens- (“thick, dense”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Latin /ns/ lost its nasal, as Pușcariu's etymon shows.^[4] The word survives south of the Danube as Aromanian des and Megleno-Romanian des.^[2][7] Ciorănescu gives the Aromanian form as ndes.^[3] DELR and the REW compare Dalmatian.^[2][8]

The two senses, “dense” in space and “frequent” in time, are joined in the same way in Latin spissus, which gave Italian spesso “thick; often” and French épais.^[3][9] The learned dens, borrowed in modern times, is its doublet.^[3][10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is the Codex of Bratul (1559–1560), which also has the adverb adésu.^[2] The Palia of Orăștie (1581–1582) has the word in Exodus 10, the plague of darkness.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The adjective describes things whose parts lie close together, such as a dense forest or a fine sieve, and things that come quickly one after another, such as rapid breathing.^[11][6] From the second sense came the adverb des “often” and the adverbs ades, adese, adesea and adeseori “often, frequently”.^[2][3] Adeseori is a dese ori “at frequent times”.^[2]

The nouns desime “density, thickness” and desiș “thicket” are recorded from 1620 and 1649, the verb îndesi “to make or become denser” from 1688.^[2] A proverb of Anton Pann says socoteală deasă e frăție aleasă “frequent reckoning makes good brotherhood”.^[11]

Timeline

• 1559–1560 – des and adésu in the Codex of Bratul.^[2]
• 1581–1582 – in the Palia of Orăștie.^[11]
• 1613 – adese “often” in Varlaam.^[2]
• 1620 – desime “thickness, density”.^[2]
• 1642–1647 – adesea in Ureche's chronicle.^[2]
• 1649 – desiș “thicket” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[2]
• c. 1650 – adeseori.^[2]
• 1688 – îndesi in the Bucharest Bible.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. dense, thick: made of parts that are very close together, with few gaps: o pădure deasă; of fabric, tightly woven.^[6][1]
2. Of the parts of a whole, set close to one another.^[6]
3. Of rain, fog or shade, thick, impenetrable.^[6]
4. frequent: happening again and again at short intervals: vizite dese.^[6][1]
5. Of movements, quick, rapid: o răsuflare deasă.^[6][11]

Adverb

1. often: Ne vedem des.^[6][3][1]

Word family

• ades
• adesea
• adeseori
• desime
• desiș
• desișor
• îndesa
• îndesi

Related words

• dens
• rar

Usage notes

Pușcariu explained des in des de dimineață “very early in the morning”, with the variant dins de dimineață, from Latin elements meaning “from the very morning”, apart from the adjective.^[4] In Bessarabia a horse called des is a strong, sturdy one.^[12]

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. des
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. des
4. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 44
5. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 652
6. ^ 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. 294
7. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 187
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2558
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8160
10. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 92
11. ^ 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. des
12. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. s.v. des