insista

Forms

insista (third-person singular present insistă, past participle insistat, third-person subjunctive insiste) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French insister (“to insist”), one of the French loans of the 19th century.^[1][2][3][4] DEX, NODEX and MDN name Latin insistō (“to stand on; to press on”) as a second model beside the French verb.^[5][6][7] The French verb is itself a learned borrowing of the Latin one, recorded in 1336.^[8] The Latin verb is formed from in- and sistō (“to stop, to set”), a reduplicated form of stō (“to stand”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Negulici's dictionary of neologisms of 1848 lists the verb in the Latinist form insistare, glossed with the native a stărui “to persist”.^[9] MDA2's first record is Aristia's translation of Plutarch's Lives, printed in 1857, where it means “to persevere in doing or asking something”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

From the sense of persevering in a request, the verb came to mean pleading insistently for something, and, construed with asupra “on”, dwelling on a point and stressing it.^[3][5] In the 19th century it was also conjugated with the suffix -ez: the DA quotes însistează “insists” from the Uricariul, and MDA2 records the present insistez as obsolete.^[2][3] Dictionaries of the time still explained it with the native a stărui.^[10][11]

Timeline

• 1848 – insistare in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[9]
• 1857 – insista in Aristia's translation of Plutarch, MDA2's first record.^[3]
• 1893 – Damé's Romanian–French dictionary gives the full conjugation with the present insist.^[12]
• 1931 – CADE marks it as a French loan with the present insist.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To insist, to persist or persevere in an action or a demand; specifically, to plead insistently for something: A insistat să rămână la masă. “He insisted on staying for the meal.”^[5][3][1]
2. With asupra: to dwell on something, to emphasize or stress it: a insista asupra unui detaliu “to dwell on a detail”.^[5][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. insista
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, 1142
4. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. insista
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 511
6. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. insista
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. insista
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. insister
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. insistare
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 331
11. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. insista
12. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. insista