dezbrăca

Forms

dezbrăca (third-person singular present dezbracă, past participle dezbrăcat, third-person subjunctive dezbrace) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *disbracō, a verb formed in Latin on brāca (“breeches”).^[2][3][4][1] Candrea and Densusianu took it straight from Latin in this way.^[5] DELR calls it instead a very old Romanian derivative of brace “breeches”, which may already go back to Latin times, and compares Old French desbraier and Occitan desbraiar, the Catalan participle desbragat and the Spanish participle desbragado.^[6] Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of îmbrăca “to dress”, and Wiktionary also allows a formation from Romanian dez- + îmbrăca, with the prefix replacing ⟨îm-⟩.^[5][1]

The Latin noun was itself borrowed from Celtic, probably Gaulish.^[7][1] Graur groups the verb with brăcinar and the verb for “to dress” as the Romanian descendants of the Latin word.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Slavonic–Romanian Gospel book (1551–1553), in Matthew 27:28, where the soldiers strip Jesus: „și-l dezbrăcară, și îmbrăcară [el] întru o plașcă” “and they stripped him and put a cloak on him”.^[6][4][8] MDA2 dates its first record to before 1581.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The verb has meant both “to take off one's clothes” (reflexive) and “to undress someone” from the 16th century on, and old texts use it of a garment too: „s-au dezbrăcat de tearfele” “he took off his rags”.^[8][4] A figurative sense “to strip someone of everything, to plunder” is old as well: a Moldavian chronicle says that Despot stripped even the churches.^[4][6] MDA2 also records an obsolete figurative sense “to give up a (bad) habit”.^[2]

Its old derivatives include dezbrăcăciune “nakedness, undressing” (1563–1566, Coresi) and dezbrăcământ “light house dress” (1794), whose sense DELR explains as a loan translation of French déshabillé;^[6] dezbrăcător meant “plunderer” in 1855 and “changing room” in 1954.^[6]

Timeline

• 1551–1553 – dezbrăcară “they stripped” in a Slavonic–Romanian Gospel book, the first record.^[6][4]
• 1563–1566 – the noun dezbrăcăciune in Coresi.^[6]
• before 1581 – in a text printed in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[2]
• 1688 – the verb in many passages of the Bucharest Bible.^[9]
• 1759 – dezbrăcălui, a rare variant of the verb.^[6]
• 1794 – dezbrăcământ “light dress worn at home”.^[6]
• 1855 – dezbrăcător “plunderer”.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive and transitive) To undress: to take off one's clothes, or to take off someone's clothes; to strip.^[3][1]
2. (transitive) To take off a garment.^[10][11]
3. (transitive, figurative) To rob someone of everything they have; to plunder.^[3][2]
4. (obsolete, figurative) To give up a bad habit.^[2]

Word family

• dezbrăcător
• dezbrăcare
• dezbrăcat

Related words

• îmbrăca
• brăcinar
• brace
• Latin brāca

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 693
3. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 307
4. ^ 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. dezbrăca
5. ^ a b 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. îmbrăca
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. dezbrăca
7. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 23
8. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. dezbrăca
9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 27:28
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 94
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. dezbrăca