descoperi

Forms

descoperi (third-person singular present descoperă, past participle descoperit, third-person subjunctive descopere), 4th conjugation^[1] An old variant is descuperi.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin discooperiō (“to uncover”), also written discoperiō.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin verb is formed with dis- on cooperiō (“to cover”), itself from co- and operiō (“to close, to cover”).^[2] Within Romanian it pairs with acoperi.^[1]

It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian discoapir and Megleno-Romanian discoapir.^[3][6] For Istria DELR gives Istro-Romanian rescoperi, with the prefix regularly replaced, and Ciorănescu descoper.^[2][3] The Romance cognates are Italian discoprire, French découvrir, Occitan descobrir, Spanish descubrir and Portuguese descobrir.^[3][2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of about 1500.^[2][4] There it occurs in Psalms 36:5 and 97:3, where it means “to reveal, to make known”.^[8][2]

Semantic evolution

Both the literal “to take the cover off” and the figurative “to reveal” are old: the Bucharest Bible of 1688 has the roof taken off a house (Mark 2:4), and an old law book tells a man confessing to bare his head.^[9] The modern sense “to find something unknown, to discover” is shown by Tiktin's example of Columbus discovering America.^[9][5]

The reflexive verb came to mean “to take off one's hat”, and MDA2 records a se descoperi în fața cuiva for paying someone deep respect.^[4][5] Later senses are military and legal: to leave a flank, or a position, without cover.^[5][4] A descoperi America is said mockingly of someone who presents a well-known fact as new.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2][10]
• 1551 – in the Voroneț psalter.^[8]
• 1559–1560 – descoperământ “revelation” in the Codex Bratul.^[2]
• 1560–1561 – descoperitură “revelation” in Coresi's Gospels.^[2]
• 1566 – the noun descoperit in Coresi.^[2]
• 1688 – descoperiră casa “they uncovered the house” in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]
• 1779 – descoperitor “one who reveals or discovers”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To uncover: to take off what covers a thing or a person.^[5][4][1]
2. (reflexive) To take off one's hat or cap.^[5][4]
3. (figurative) To leave a unit's flank exposed, or something without legal cover.^[5][4]
4. (figurative, also reflexive) To reveal, to give away, to betray.^[5][4]
5. To discover, to find something sought, unknown or hidden.^[5] Also, to penetrate a mystery.^[5][3]

Word family

• descoperământ
• descoperit
• descoperitură
• descoperitor
• descoperire

Related words

• acoperi
• Aromanian discoapir
• Late Latin discooperiō

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 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. descoperi
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. descoperi
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 658
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 297
6. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 112
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2659
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 97:3
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. descoperi
10. ^ 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 36:5