despuia

Forms

despuia (third-person singular present despoaie, past participle despuiat) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dēspoliō (“to rob, to plunder”), from spoliō (“to plunder, to strip a beaten enemy”), from spolium (“skin stripped from an animal; spoils”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1][7]} Tiktin, DER and DEX give the etymon as dispoliō;^[2][8] DELR explains this as a late spelling of the same Latin word.^[2][8] It survives in all four branches: Aromanian dispolj, Megleno-Romanian dispoľ and Istro-Romanian respol'å, the last with the usual change of prefix;^{[2][3][6][9][10]} DER gives the Istro-Romanian form as despol'u.^{[2][3][6][9][10]} Its Romance cognates include Italian spogliare, French dépouiller, Occitan despolhar, Catalan despullar, Spanish despojar and Portuguese despojar.^[3][7] The sense “to strip of clothing”, found in most Romance languages, must have arisen in Latin of the imperial period.^[11]

The literary senses “to excerpt a text”, “to deprive of a quality” and “to count the votes” are modelled on the French verb.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1566, in a print of Coresi.^[2] In Coresi's gospel commentary a speaker complains „despuiați şi sem bătuţi” “we are stripped and beaten”.^[4] MDA2 takes its first record from the Moldavian Pravila, and Tiktin gives a Wallachian document of 1630.^[12][5] The earliest senses are “to rob” and “to strip, to skin”.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The old language used the verb above all for robbing: thieves and enemies who strip travellers, and rulers who strip the people with taxes.^[4][13] Beside it stood the bodily senses: to skin an animal, still regional in Moldavia, to strip a person naked, and, by extension, to strip trees of leaves, to peel, and in the Banat and Oltenia to husk maize or strip the grains from the cob.^[12][5][2] In the 19th century French gave it the senses of excerpting a text and counting votes.^[3][2]

The derivatives are old: despoietură in the Palia de la Orăștie of 1582, despuiere “plunder; skins” in the Bucharest Bible of 1688, and despuitor “despoiler” in Heliade-Rădulescu.^[2][6] DELR leaves open whether despuitură was formed in Romanian or continues dēspoliātūra.^[2]

Timeline

• 1566 – the first record, in a print of Coresi.^[2]
• 1582 – despoietură in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[2]
• 1630 – a Wallachian document, Tiktin's first record.^[5]
• 1660 – despuiem “we strip off” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – despuiat “naked” and the noun despuiere in the Bucharest Bible.^[15][2]
• 1857 – despuitor in Heliade-Rădulescu.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To strip naked; of trees and land, to lose or strip of leaves and greenery.^[8][12]
2. (transitive) To take everything someone has; to rob, to plunder.^[8][16]
3. (transitive) To skin an animal;^[8][12] (rare) to peel.^[8][12]
4. (transitive) To go through a document or a publication and extract what matters for a purpose;^[8][3] a despuia scrutinul “to count the votes”.^[8][3]

Word family

• despuiere
• despuitor

Related words

• Aromanian dispolj
• Latin dēspoliō

Usage notes

The present is despoi, third person despoaie.^[8][1] The variant despoia is regional and old.^[8][5]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. despuia
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. despuia
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. despuia
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. despuia
6. ^ a b c d Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2602
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 301
9. ^ a b Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 404
10. ^ a b Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 215
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. dépouiller
12. ^ 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, 674
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 79
14. ^ 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. despuiem
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 3:10
16. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. despuia