despica

Forms

despica (third-person singular present despică, past participle despicat, third-person subjunctive despice) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dēspicō (“to cut open an animal, to gut”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} DELR notes that the REW finds the word only in Romanian, and that Italian dispiccare, which Densusianu compared, cannot go back to it directly because of its double consonant.^[3][7] It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian disic, also dischic, and Megleno-Romanian dispic.^{[2][3][8][9][10]} Tiktin takes the Aromanian ⟨-sic⟩ to be a dissimilation of an intermediate ⟨-schic⟩.^[11] Pascu instead derives the Aromanian verb from dēsecō (“to cut off”) or dissecō (“to cut apart”).^[12]

The Latin verb itself is obscure.^[3] DELR, following Ernout and Meillet, gives two possibilities: an old term of augury, “to examine the entrails”, from speciō (“to look at”), or a derivative of spīca (“ear of grain”), “to take the grain out of the ear”, hence “to gut”.^[3] Only the second, with a long /iː/, gives the Romanian form regularly; with a short vowel one would expect *⟨despeca⟩.^[3] Graur asked how the length of the vowel is known at all, since the Latin word occurs only in prose.^[13] Earlier scholars looked elsewhere: Candrea and Scriban started from spic, Cihac from explicō, and Tiktin found that it fitted neither plicō nor secō.^[2][3][11] Ungureanu cites the participle from Victor of Vita, after 484.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, of the early 16th century.^[15] DELR and Tiktin cite the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel of 1551–1553, in Matthew.^[3][11] The Psaltirea Scheiană has the reflexive despicară-să and the future va despica.^[16] The sense from the start is “to split, to cleave”.^[11][3]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is splitting wood or another hard thing lengthwise; the record also uses it of rocks, of the earth, of the sea divided by Moses' staff, and of heads split by a blow.^[5][11] Tiktin and DER record cutting up a slaughtered animal, the sense nearest the Latin.^[11][2] Transferred senses followed: of birds and ships that “split” the air or the water, of a heart that breaks with pity, of buds that burst open, and of careful analysis.^[11][4][3] In the old language it also meant dividing land into plots, and the reflexive meant “to branch”.^[3][6] The expression a despica firul în patru “to split the thread in four” is used for examining something too minutely.^[4][6]

The participle despicat appears as the place name Despicați in 1590, despicătură “split, crack” about 1650, and despicător in Cantemir in 1705.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – despica in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[15]
• 1551–1553 – the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel.^[3][11]
• c. 1573–1578 – despicară-să in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[16]
• 1590 – the place name Despicați.^[3]
• c. 1650 – despicătură in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[3]
• 1651 – a psalter with „despică leamne” “splits wood”, MDA2's first record.^[6][5]
• 1660 – despicat in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, for splitting firewood.^[17]
• 1688 – despicară in the Bucharest Bible.^[18]
• 1705 – despicător in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To split, to cleave lengthwise into two or more pieces: a despica lemne;^[4][6] a despica firul în patru “to split hairs”.^[4][6]
2. (transitive and reflexive, figurative) To break, to rend, of the heart.^[4][11]
3. (transitive and reflexive) To crack, to slit open over part of its length;^[4][6] (reflexive) of buds, to burst open;^[4][6] (rare) to separate.^[4][6]
4. (transitive) To cut through the air, the water or a crowd.^[4][11]
5. (transitive, figurative) To get to the bottom of something complex; to analyse, to explain in detail.^[4][19]

Word family

• despicat
• despicătură
• despicător

Related words

• Aromanian disic
• Latin dēspicō

Usage notes

Moldavian, Dobrujan and some Transylvanian speech have the variant deșpica.^[3][6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. despica
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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. despica
4. ^ 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. 300
5. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. despica
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 671
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2600
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 397
9. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 214
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 112
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. despica
12. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 76
13. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1963), Etimologii romînești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. despica
14. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 325
15. ^ 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 67:15
16. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A. (1916), Psaltirea Scheiană comparată cu celelalte psaltiri din sec. XVI și XVII traduse din slavonește, vol. II: Glosarele, București: Socec, p. 281
17. ^ 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. despicat
18. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 27:51
19. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. despica