exagera

Forms

exagera (third-person singular present exagerează, past participle exagerat) 1st conjugation^[1] Older texts write esagera and esajera and have a present exager: „pare-se că am cam esagerat-o noi înșine” “it seems we ourselves have rather exaggerated it” (Hasdeu).^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French exagérer, with Latin exaggerō as a second model, as DELR, MDA2, DEX and the DLR give it.^{[2][3][5][4][1]} French borrowed the verb from Latin before 1542.^[6]

The Latin verb is formed ex- and aggerō (“to heap up”), from agger (“heap of earth, rampart”).^[2][7] It first meant “to heap up, build up by piling” and then “to amplify, magnify”.^[7][2] Graur groups it with sugera and digera in the family of gerō (“to carry”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and MDA2 date the first record to about 1832, in I. Golescu's manuscript dictionary Condica limbii rumânești, with the sense of presenting something as larger than it is.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The verb kept the sense of presenting facts out of proportion, larger or smaller than they are, and of going beyond measure in an activity.^[4][2] A second, intensive sense, to make or become more intense, is quoted from the 19th century: Fătu warns that a feast should not „se ecsagereze în patimă” “grow into a passion”.^[4] CADE adds praising or blaming beyond measure.^[9] The family followed in the 1840s: exagerator and exagerație in 1840 and exagerativ in Negulici's glossary of 1848.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1832 – first record, in Golescu's Condica.^[2][3]
• 1840 – exagerator and exagerație.^[2]
• 1848 – esagerativ, the modern exagerativ, in Negulici's glossary.^[2]
• 1862 – in Pontbriant's dictionary, glossed with French exagérer.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also absolute) To exaggerate: to present a fact as larger than it is, to amplify it beyond measure: Nu exagera, n-a fost chiar așa de rău.^[5][4][1]
2. (transitive and reflexive) To make or become more intense; to intensify.^[3][4]
3. (transitive) To stress certain features in order to bring them out; to give something more importance than it deserves.^[3]

Word family

• exagerativ
• exagerație
• exagerator

Related words

• digera
• sugera

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. exagera
3. ^ 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, 849
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. exagera
5. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 367
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească
10. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich