distrage

Forms

distrage (third-person singular present distrage, past participle distras, third-person subjunctive distragă), 3rd conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French distraire, fitted to the conjugation of trage “to pull”.^[2][3][4][1] MDA2, Marcu & Maneca and Wiktionary name borrowed from Latin distrahō (“to pull apart”) as a second source, and Tiktin compares Italian distrarre.^[5][6][1][4] The French verb was borrowed in 1377 from the same Latin verb, its form attracted by traire (“to draw”); the Latin is formed from dis- and trahō (“to pull, draw”).^[7] Romanian has the French verb in a second form, distra, which Wiktionary calls a doublet of this one.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1847, in Heliade-Rădulescu, with the sense “to turn someone's attention away from their concerns”.^[2][4] The DLR quotes Heliade on jesters, who „de multe ori sunt și necesarii spre a distrage pe luptători” “are often needed too, to distract the fighters”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The family came in from French in stages: distracție is recorded from 1814 and distrat “absent-minded” from about 1832, before the verb itself.^[2] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 spells the verb in Latin style distraggere and gives it the senses “to separate, take a part out of a whole” and, figuratively, “to divert someone from an occupation or a sorrow”, with the reflexive “to amuse oneself”.^[9] The sense “to separate” is now obsolete.^[5] The reflexive “to amuse oneself” and the transitive “to entertain” were still used by Eminescu and Caragiale, but the dictionaries now mark them as dated: distra took them over.^[8][10][5] The surviving sense is “to divert attention”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1847 – first record, in Heliade-Rădulescu.^[2][4]
• 1848 – Negulici's distraggere, with the senses “to separate” and “to divert”; the participle distras used as an adjective “absent-minded”.^[9][2]
• 1883 – the related adjective distractiv “entertaining”, from French.^[2]
• 1893 – Damé's dictionary notes that it is conjugated like trage.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To distract someone: to turn their attention or thoughts away from a task, a concern or a worry: Zgomotul de afară îl distrăgea de la lucru.^[3][5][1]
2. To bring someone out of a state of mind, such as melancholy.^[5][8]
3. (dated) To amuse, to entertain; reflexive, to amuse oneself; now distra.^[10][5]
4. (obsolete) To separate a part from a whole.^[5][9]

Related words

• distra
• distracție
• distrat
• trage

Usage notes

The verb is conjugated like trage: simple past distrăsei, participle distras.^[6][11] Tiktin records an old form detrage.^[4] The adjective for “absent-minded” is distrat, not the participle distras, which had that sense only in the 19th century.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. distrage
3. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 322
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. distrage
5. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 731
6. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. distrage
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. distrage
9. ^ a b c Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. distraggere
10. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 134
11. ^ a b Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. distrage