gata

Forms

gata m or f or n (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed between a Slavic and an Albanian source.^[2][1] In Ciorănescu's view it is borrowed from Serbo-Croatian gotovŭ (“ready”), a South Slavic adjective: Romanian speakers read its ending as an inflection of a stem *gat-, which with the adverbial ending ⟨-a⟩ gave the Romanian word.^[2] Petrovici, who had first supported the Albanian source, later accepted the Slavic one and dated the loan before the 9th century, when Slavic /a/ became /o/.^[2] Wiktionary also prefers Proto-Slavic *gotovъ, noting that a /v/ between vowels was lost in other old Slavonic loans as well.^[1] It matches Old Church Slavonic готовъ (gotovŭ, “ready, prepared”).^[3]

Meyer, Philippide and Rosetti derived the word from Albanian gat with the adverbial ⟨-a⟩, and so does the DA.^[2][4] DEX, Tiktin and Scriban only compare the Albanian word, Tiktin calling the Slavic adjective related.^[5][6][7] Demiraj traces Albanian gati (“ready”) to Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- (“to go”).^[8] Vasmer also counts the Albanian word as related to the Slavic one, while Çabej, reviewing the debate, raised the possibility that the Romanian word is an Albanian loan.^[9][10] Miklosich once took it for a word of the pre-Roman population.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the early 16th-century Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 56:10), and the word is in all the 16th-century psalters.^[11] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană, Psalm 16:12, with the sense “ready, prepared”.^[6] MDA2's first record is Neculce's chronicle (c. 1743).^[12]

Semantic evolution

The two old senses, “ready, prepared” and “finished, done”, are both in the chroniclers: the chronicler Ureche speaks of the Moldavians as gata la domnii nouă “quick to take to new rulers”.^[6][4] The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) gives both senses, with cumpăr cu banii gata “I buy for cash”.^[13] Old phrases are bani gata “ready money” and a plăti de-a gata “to pay in cash”; others are fecior de bani gata “a rich family's son” and haine gata “ready-made clothes”.^[6][12][7] The colloquial a da gata means “to finish off”, then “to destroy someone” and “to bowl someone over”.^[5][6]

The verb găti “to prepare; to cook; to dress up” and pregăti “to prepare” were formed from the word;^[2] Ciorănescu sees pregăti as a modern coinage modelled on Latin praeparare or Russian prigotoviti.^[2] Albanian pregatoń is a 19th-century literary loan from pregăti.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[11]
• c. 1573-1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[6][14]
• 1678 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic готов “ready”.^[15]
• c. 1743 – in Neculce's chronicle, MDA2's first record.^[12]
• 1825 – gata “ready; finished” and banii gata “cash” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (of things) finished, completed, done: haine (de) gata “ready-made clothes”.^[5][12][1]
2. (of people) ready, prepared; willing or able: gata de plecare “ready to leave”.^[5][12][1]
3. About to, on the point of: Copilul era gata să plângă. “The child was about to cry.”^[5][6]

Adverb

1. (pe) de-a gata: without working, from someone else's work;^[5][12] a veni la de-a gata “to profit from what others have done”.^[5][12]
2. a da gata: to finish off; to destroy or torment someone; to bewilder.^[5]
3. (as an interjection) That's it! Enough!^[5]

Word family

• găti
• găteală
• gătitură
• pregăti
• nepregătit

Related words

• Albanian gati
• Serbo-Croatian gotov

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. gata
3. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
4. ^ a b 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. gata
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 427
6. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. gáta
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 542
8. ^ Demiraj, Bardhyl (1997), Albanische Etymologien: Untersuchungen zum albanischen Erbwortschatz, Amsterdam / Atlanta: Rodopi (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 7), p. 296
9. ^ Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
10. ^ Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
11. ^ 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 56:10
12. ^ 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, 966
13. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 235
14. ^ 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 16:13
15. ^ 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. gata