lipsă

Forms

lipsă f (plural lipsuri)^[1] Besides the usual plural lipsuri, an old plural lipse occurs.^[2][3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written липсэ.^[1]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Romanian lipsi (“to be missing, to lack”), as DEX, MDA2, DLR and Wiktionary give it.^[2][3][4][1] Ciorănescu also treats it as a postverbal noun of the verb.^[5] The verb lipsi is from Ancient Greek λείπω (leípō, “to leave, to lack”), from its aorist ἔλειψα (éleipsa), perhaps partly through Slavonic, and compares with Albanian lipsem and the Aromanian lipsescu.^[5][1]

Other views take the noun straight from Greek.^[5][6] Roesler derived it from λεῖψις (leîpsis, “a leaving, lack”), as Ciorănescu reports.^[5] Scriban and Șăineanu give the Greek noun as well, and Gabinschi traces it to ἔλλειψις (élleipsis, “a falling short”).^[6][7][8] The DA allowed a borrowing from Bulgarian as a second possibility.^[9] A doublet, “lipsis” “lack”, came directly from Modern Greek in the 18th century.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the postface of the Psaltirea Scheiană (16th century).^[10] In Coresi's Gospel homilies (1581) man, created incorruptible, broke the commandment and „cu alalte daruri și de Sfântul Duh luo lipsă” “with the other gifts also lost the Holy Spirit”.^[4] MDA2 has its first record in Dosoftei's lives of the saints (1682–1686), where people complain of „lipsa hranii” “the lack of food”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the word meant both absence and want: lipsă de pâine “a dearth of bread”, lipsa banilor “the lack of money”.^[4][10] In Banat and Transylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries it meant “need”, with de lipsă “necessary” and a avea lipsă “to need”, and a fi lipsă “to be needed” also in Moldavia.^[11] The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) still gives “need, necessity” beside “lack” and “poverty”.^[12] The sense “need” survives in regional speech, in Maramureș and in the Hațeg glossary.^[13][14]

The Bucharest Bible of 1688 already uses it as an adjective, „nici un cot lipsă” “not a cubit missing”.^[10] Phrases followed: în lipsă “in absence”, also the legal “in absentia”, în lipsa mea “while I was away”, and the dismissive mai bine lipsă! “rather none at all!”.^[10][2] For people, the neologism absență has been taking its place.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1573-1578 – the postface of the Psaltirea Scheiană, the first record.^[10]
• 1581 – luo lipsă “lost” in Coresi's Gospel homilies.^[4]
• 1640–1780 – “need” and de lipsă “necessary” in Banat and Transylvanian texts.^[11]
• 1660 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1682–1686 – lipsa hranii “the lack of food” in Dosoftei's lives of the saints.^[3][4]
• 1688 – adjectival lipsă “missing” in the Bucharest Bible.^[10][16]
• 1801 – Lipsa glossed with Latin “egestas, necessitas” in Klein's dictionary.^[17]
• 1870 – în lipsă de “for want of” and din lipsă “for lack of” in Costinescu.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. The fact of not being where one should be, absence;^[2][3] în lipsă (law) “in contumacie”;^[2][3] în lipsa cuiva “while someone is away”;^[2][3] a duce lipsă de ceva “to be short of something”: A fost judecat în lipsă.^[2][3]
2. (attributive) Missing, absent: Doi elevi sunt lipsă azi.^[2]
3. Something missing from a whole.^[2]
4. A gap, shortcoming or defect: Lucrarea are câteva lipsuri.^[2][6]
5. want, poverty: the lack of what one needs.^[2]
6. (dated, regional) Need, necessity;^[2][11] de lipsă “necessary”.^[2][11]

Related words

• lipsi
• elipsă
• lipsit

Usage notes

The plural is lipsuri; the old plural was lipse.^[2] Mai bine lipsă is a fixed phrase for “better not at all”.^[2] DLR lists a second lipsă as a variant of elipsă.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 595
3. ^ 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, 1377
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lipsă
5. ^ a b c d e 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. lipsi
6. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 750
7. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 367
8. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 123
9. ^ 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. lipsă
10. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. lipsă
11. ^ a b c d Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 169
12. ^ 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. 355
13. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare
14. ^ Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 322
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
16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition)
17. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 391
18. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 41