fugi

Forms

fugi (third-person singular present fuge, past participle fugit, third-person subjunctive fugă) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fugiō (“to flee”), in its popular form with the infinitive in ⟨-īre⟩ instead of classical ⟨-ere⟩.^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰewg-.^[1]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian fug, Megleno-Romanian fug and Istro-Romanian fug.^[2][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian fuggire, French fuir, Spanish huir and Portuguese fugir, which also continue the form in ⟨-īre⟩.^[2][9][6] The noun fugă belongs with it.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century: fugiră “they fled” (Psalm 30:15) and fugişi “you fled” (Psalm 113:5).^[10][11] MDA2 and the DA cite the Codicele Voronețean of about 1563–1583: Protiviți-vă dracului și fugi-va de la voi “resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).^[4][5][12]

Semantic evolution

The DA puts escape from danger at the core of the word's meaning, with quick movement away as the means.^[5] Today the sense “to run” comes first in DEX, followed by “to flee, escape”, used of a prisoner breaking out, a soldier deserting and lovers eloping.^[3][4] Figurative senses are time passing quickly and landscape seeming to slip past a traveller; of milk on the fire it means to boil over.^[3] MDA2 also records leaving a totalitarian country illegally to seek asylum.^[4]

Derivatives include the old noun fugire “flight”, recorded in Coresi in 1580, fugar “fugitive” and fugări “to chase”.^[6][1]

Timeline

• early 16th century – fugiră in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[10]
• c. 1563–1583 – fugi-va in the Codicele Voronețean.^[4][5]
• 1580 – the noun fugire in Coresi.^[6]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible: pren șapte căi vor fugi de cătră fața ta “they shall flee before thee seven ways”.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To run, move fast on foot;^[3][1] a fugi după cineva “to run after someone”; of milk, to boil over.^[3][1]
2. (figurative) Of time: to pass quickly; of a landscape: to seem to rush past a traveller.^[3]
3. To flee, leave a place in haste to escape a danger; of a prisoner, to escape; of a soldier, to desert.^[3][4]
4. Of lovers: to elope.^[3][4]
5. To avoid, shun, keep away from someone or something.^[3][2]

Word family

• fugar
• fugări
• fugire

Related words

• fugă
• fugaci
• Aromanian fug

Usage notes

Fugi de-aici! is a familiar “go away!” or “come off it!”, and a-i fugi cuiva pământul de sub picioare “to lose one's footing”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. fugi
3. ^ 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. 417
4. ^ 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, 949
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. fugi
6. ^ a b c d Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 665
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
8. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3550
10. ^ 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 30:15
11. ^ 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 113:5
12. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. fugi