dori

Forms

dori (present doresc, third-person singular dorește, past participle dorit, subjunctive să dorească), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian dor + -i.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Dor “longing; pain” is from Late Latin dolus (“pain”), which DELR calls a back-formation from doleō (“to hurt”).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is the early 16th-century Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, where the participle dorit occurs in Psalm 105:25.^[2][6] The sense was “to desire, to long for”.^[2] MDA2 dates the word from the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578).^[5]

Semantic evolution

The old language used the verb for “to desire” and “to love”, and in Muntenia for “to miss someone”.^[2] It could be intransitive with de, întru, spre or pentru: Ispirescu's boy began to weep și să dorească de părinți “and to long for his parents”.^[7] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss it with the Slavonic verbs for desiring.^[8] The DLR quotes it in Varlaam and the New Testament of 1648, and the psalter of 1651 says God's judgements are mai dorite... decât aurul “more desired than gold”.^[9]

The verb is also used for wishing something to someone, a dori cuiva sănătate “to wish someone health”, and the old phrase a dori cuiva de bine meant “to take one's leave”.^[7][5][10] In Maramureș the reflexive a să dori means “to love each other”.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – dorit in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2][6]
• c. 1573-1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[5]
• 1648 – dornic “eager” from the same noun, in the New Testament of 1648.^[2]
• 1649 – doresc in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[8]
• 1682 – dorință “wish” and doritor “desirous” in Dosoftei.^[2]
• 1851 – doritiv “optative” in a Romanian grammar, after Latin and French.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To desire, to long to do, have or get something; to aspire to: a fi de dorit “to be desirable”, a lăsa de dorit “to leave something to be desired”.^[4][5][1]
2. To want, to intend: Cum doriți. “As you wish.”^[4][5]
3. To long to see someone or something dear; to wait eagerly for.^[4][5]
4. To feel sexual attraction for someone.^[4][1]
5. To wish someone something: Vă doresc noroc! “I wish you luck!”^[4][5]

Word family

• dorință
• dorit
• doritor
• doritiv

Related words

• dor
• dornic

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. dor
3. ^ 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. dor
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 328
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 747
6. ^ 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 105:25
7. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. dorí
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. doresc
9. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. dori
10. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. dori
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1925), Graiul și folklorul Maramureșului, București: Cultura Națională, p. 219