descoperire

Forms

descoperire f (plural descoperiri)^[1] An 18th-century text has the variant discoperire: „Discoperire sfintei și dumnezăeștii leturghii” “a revelation of the holy and divine liturgy”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of descoperi “to uncover, to discover”, formed from Romanian descoperi + -re, and became a noun of action.^[1][2][4][5] The verb itself is inherited from Late Latin discooperiō (“to uncover”), formed dis- and cooperiō (“to cover”), which is from co- and operiō (“to close, cover”).^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in Coresi's Omiliar of 1581.^[4] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons, from Mardarie's of 1649 on, use it to translate the Slavonic words for “revelation” and “apocalypse”, and the Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it for the revelation of God.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

The religious sense “revelation” came first: Dosoftei writes of a prophet foretelling what was to come “from divine revelation”, and Antim and Cantemir use it in the same way.^[2] From the 18th century it also meant the disclosure of a secret: a code of 1788 punishes the betrayal of tainele statului “the state's secrets”, and the newspapers of the 1830s report the discovery of plots.^[2]

The sense “finding something unknown” spread in the 19th century: Damé and CADE give the discovery of America and of printing, and CADE the concrete sense, a thing found for the first time.^[10][11] The bilingual dictionaries of the period gloss it with Latin detectio, inventio and revelatio.^[12][13] It is also used for raising one's hat as a sign of respect.^[2]

Timeline

• 1581 – in Coresi's Omiliar.^[4]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, for “revelation”.^[8]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]
• 1788 – the disclosure of state secrets, in a code of law.^[2]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it as uncovering, discovery and revelation.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of uncovering or discovering something, and its result; a discovery; also the thing discovered.^[5][3]
2. revelation.^[5][3]
3. The disclosure of something kept secret.^[3][2]
4. The uncovering of a statue at its unveiling; the raising of one's hat in respect.^[3][2]

Related words

• descoperi
• descoperitor
• acoperi

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. descoperire
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 658
4. ^ 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. descoperire
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 297
6. ^ 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
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b 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. descoperire
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Luke 2:32
10. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. descoperire
12. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 179
13. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 104