lepăda

Forms

lepăda (third-person singular present leapădă, past participle lepădat, third-person subjunctive lepede) 1st conjugation^[1] The present is lepăd or leapăd, and popular speech also has lapăd with the infinitive lăpăda.^[2][3] Tiktin records lăpăda with the present lapăd in Oltenia and Transylvania, and in the Bucharest Bible of 1688 at Tobit 11:5, beside the usual lepăda.^[4][5] Anton Pann wrote the variant in a proverb: „până nu vei vedea pe cel bun, nu lapăda pe cel prost” “until you have seen the good one, do not throw away the poor one”.^[6]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Latin lapidō (“to throw stones at, to stone”), a verb formed on lapis (“stone”).^{[3][7][2][4][8][1]} Tiktin calls the change of meaning remarkable.^[4] Ciorănescu grants that the sense is the difficulty, but argues that in popular Latin the verb must also have meant “to throw stones; to throw away as useless”, like dīlapidō, and that “to throw away” is the first sense, since it explains the Aromanian verb and matches the oldest Romanian examples.^[8] The word survives south of the Danube as Aromanian aleapid “to cast away; to rush at”.^[8][9][10]

Herzog derived the verb from Latin liquidō (“to make liquid”), which the REW accepted, but Ciorănescu finds this impossible and Graur notes that Latin ⟨qui⟩ could not give /pă/.^[8][11][12] Drăganu proposed Vulgar Latin *lepidō formed on Latin lepis (“scale”), with a first sense “to shed the skin”, said of snakes and lizards; the DA follows him, tracing the verb to a popular Latin of the eastern Romance area under Greek influence, from the family of Ancient Greek λεπίς (lepís, “scale”).^[8][13] Graur, who had once listed the verb as of unknown origin, finds this the likeliest view: the Aromanian verb and the Daco-Romanian present ⟨leapăd⟩ point to a Latin /e/ or short /i/, not /a/, though it remains unexplained why the vowel did not become a diphthong, perhaps because the word was borrowed late.^[11] Ciorănescu rejects Drăganu's view, and also Cihac's derivation from Hungarian lapedál and Crețu's from Latin vilipendō.^[8] The Hungarian verb comes from Romanian, as does a Transylvanian Saxon verb meaning “to throw”.^[8][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is in the earliest psalter, the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, as the infinitive lepăda (Psalms 14:6, 50:12 and 70:10), the participle lepădat (131:11) and the past lepădași “you cast off” (88:37).^[15] In the psalters it renders “to reject, forsake”: a later psalter quoted by Tiktin has „Să nu mă lepezi și să nu mă lași” “do not cast me off and do not leave me”, translating Greek ἐγκαταλείπω (enkataleípō).^[4] The Codicele Voronețean, which MDA2 takes as its first record, has the concrete sense: the sailors „lepădară grîul în mare” “threw the wheat into the sea”.^[8][2]

Semantic evolution

From “to throw away” the verb came to mean “to take off” a garment, “to put down” a thing, “to reject” or “to drive away” a person, and “to abandon”; in Transylvania and the Banat it also means “to vomit”, and of women and female animals “to miscarry”.^[8][4] Animals shed hair, feathers, horns or skin with it: Tiktin's example has the stag shedding its antlers, the snake its skin and the fish laying spawn.^[4][3] The DA, true to its etymology, puts the shedding of skin and feathers first.^[13] The reflexive a se lepăda de “to renounce, disown” is the religious sense, as in the baptismal formula „Leapădu-mă de Satana” “I renounce Satan”, and Peter's denial of Christ.^[4][16] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss its forms with Slavonic verbs for “to renounce” and “to reject”.^[17]

DLR labels the verb old and popular, and today mostly poetic.^[7] The participle became a personal name, Lepădat, recorded from 1557;^[18] Constantinescu links it to the folk custom of “casting off” or mock-selling a child to protect it from death.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – lepăda, lepădat and lepădași in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[19]
• c. 1551–1558 – lepădară “they cast off” in the Psaltirea Voroneț (Psalm 77:63).^[20]
• 1557 – Lepădat, a personal name formed on the participle.^[18]
• c. 1563–1583 – lepădară “they threw away” in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2][8]
• 1570 – leapădă in Coresi's psalter (Psalm 14:6).^[21]
• 1660 – leapăd glossed with Slavonic verbs for “to renounce” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[17]
• 1688 – lăpăda beside lepăda in the Bucharest Bible.^[5][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To drop or let go of something; to throw away something useless;^[3][2] a nu fi de lepădat “not to be sneezed at, worth having”.^[3][2]
2. To give someone something of little value.^[3]
3. To take off a garment or shoes;^[3][2] a-și lepăda masca “to drop the mask, show one's true face”, a-și lepăda potcoavele “to die”.^[3][2]
4. Of animals: to shed hair, skin or feathers; to moult.^[3]
5. Of women and female animals: to miscarry; of fish: to lay spawn.^[3][4]
6. (figurative) To leave someone or something behind; to drive away.^[3]
7. (figurative) To give up or renounce something; reflexive: to quit a habit.^[3][22]
8. (figurative, reflexive) To break with someone; to deny or disown.^[3][4]

Word family

• lepădat
• lepădătură
• lepădare

Related words

• Aromanian aleapid
• Latin lapidō

Usage notes

DEX labels the whole verb popular; in the standard language arunca “to throw” and renunța “to renounce” are more usual.^[3][7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1349
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 586
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. lepăda
5. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Tobit 11:5
6. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. lepăda
7. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lepăda
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. lepăda
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 81
10. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 45
11. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1963), Etimologii romînești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. lepăda
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5076
13. ^ 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. lepăda
14. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. lepădá
15. ^ 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 50:12
16. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 361
17. ^ a b 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. leapăd
18. ^ a b c Constantinescu, N. A. (1963), Dicționar onomastic romînesc, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. lepăda
19. ^ 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 88:37
20. ^ 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 77:63
21. ^ 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 14:6
22. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. lepăda