lăcrima

Forms

lăcrima (third-person singular present lăcrimează, past participle lăcrimat) 1st conjugation^[1] The old texts write lăcrăma, still a variant: „Chenuiți și lăcrămați, plângeți” “be afflicted and mourn and weep” (Codicele Voronețean, James 4:9).^[2][3][4] MDA2 also records the old lacrema, lacrăma and the regional lecrema.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lacrimō (“to shed tears, weep”), from lacrima (“tear”).^{[2][5][4][3][1][6]} Pușcariu (EWRS no. 933), Candrea and Densusianu and the DA take it straight from the Latin verb;^[7] Ciorănescu treats it as a Romanian derivative of lacrimă.^[7] Wiktionary takes the present in ⟨-ez⟩ from a Vulgar Latin *lacrimizō.^[1]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian lãcãrmedz and Megleno-Romanian lăcrămare.^[7][8][1] The Romance cognates include Italian lagrimare, Occitan lagremar, Catalan llagremar, Spanish lagrimar and Portuguese lagrimar.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the Epistle of James: „Chenuiți și lăcrămați, plângeți” “be afflicted and mourn and weep”.^[5][2][3] The sense there is to shed tears, to mourn.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The old texts use it for people weeping or mourning: Varlaam, Miron Costin, Dosoftei and the Bible of 1688 have lăcrăma.^[2] Said of the eyes, it means to fill with tears from pain, illness or emotion; the glossary of the Anonymus Caransebesiensis has lacrămăz, and an 1814 calendar speaks of cattle whose eyes begin to water.^[10][2] Figuratively it is said of liquids that ooze drop by drop, of resins and incense, and regionally of earthen or wooden vessels that let liquid seep through.^[10][5] In poetry it is also transitive, “to wet with tears”: Alecsandri's folk poems have „Nu-ți mai lăcrima ochii” “don't fill your eyes with tears any more”.^[3][11]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – lăcrămați “weep” in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[5][2]
• 1600–1650 – lăcrămă “wept”, of Christ at Lazarus's death, in a text of Gaster's chrestomathy.^[2]
• 1688 – lăcrăma in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1814 – watering eyes of cattle in a calendar.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (of people) To have tears running from the eyes from pain, grief or emotion; to weep softly; to înlăcrima.^[4][5][1]
2. (of the eyes, also reflexive) To fill with tears again and again, from pain, emotion or illness; to water.^[4][13]
3. (figurative, of liquids) To ooze slowly, drop by drop.^[5][10]
4. (regional, of earthen or wooden vessels) To let the liquid inside seep through.^[5][10]

Related words

• lacrimă
• lăcrimos
• înlăcrima

Usage notes

DEX also has a separate verb lăcrăma, a popular form of reclama “to complain”; the DA records a sense “to complain” for lăcrima too, which Ciorănescu explains by confusion with that verb.^[10][7]

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 Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lăcrima
3. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. lăcrimá
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 579
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1319
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d 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. lacrimă
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 576
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4825
10. ^ a b c d e f 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. lăcrimá
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 728
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Înțelepciunea lui Iisus, fiiul lui Sirah 12:22
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. lăcrima