implora

Forms

implora (third-person singular present imploră, past participle implorat) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French implorer, with Latin implōrō as a second model, a neologism of the late 18th and 19th centuries;^[2][3][4][5] DEX, DN and MDN give French and Latin, MDA2 and DN Italian too, the DA French with Latin.^[2][3][4][5] Ciorănescu puts Latin first, dating it to the 19th century, and Tiktin gives Latin alone.^[6][7]

The Latin verb is made in- and plōrō (“to weep”) and meant “to ask with tears, to invoke”;^[8][5] French borrowed it in 1280.^[8][5] Ciorănescu compares deplora, from Latin dēplōrō.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1794, with the sense “to beseech”.^[7] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 has implorare “to beg, to ask fervently and humbly, to call on God for help”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Tiktin records an obsolete variant implâra.^[7] In the poets of the 19th century it is an emotional word, as in Eminescu's line „De la ochii ei cei tineri mântuirea s-o implore” “to beg salvation from her young eyes”.^[7] Besides begging a person, it means asking for a thing, such as help or mercy, with humility and insistence.^[10][3] The noun implorare and the adjective implorator are formed from it.^[5][6]

Timeline

• 1794 – the first record.^[7]
• 1848 – implorare in Negulici's dictionary.^[9]
• 1862 – in Pontbriant's dictionary, glossed French implorer, supplier.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To implore, to beg someone insistently, in despair and with humility.^[2][1]
2. To ask for something insistently and humbly: a implora iertarea “to beg forgiveness”; to call on someone for help.^[10][3]

Word family

• implorator
• implorare

Related words

• Latin implōrō

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 494
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1118
4. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. implora
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. implora
6. ^ a b c 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. implora
7. ^ 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. implora
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. implorer
9. ^ a b 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. implorare
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, 498
11. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 322