lupta

Forms

lupta (third-person singular present luptă, past participle luptat, third-person subjunctive lupte), 1st conjugation; present lupt^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin luctor (“to wrestle, struggle”), through the active form luctāre that Old Latin used beside the classical deponent.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The Latin verb was first a term of athletics, “to wrestle”, and later “to struggle” in general.^[7] De Vaan explains it as a frequentative built on a participle meaning “bent”, from Proto-Indo-European *lewg- (“to bend”).^[6][1]

The noun luptă is a separate inheritance, from Latin lucta (“wrestling”), and not formed in Romanian from the verb.^[2][8] Ciorănescu lists the verb under the noun's derivatives but takes it, too, from the Latin verb.^[5][2][8] In Latin the relation ran the other way: the noun, a late word, was probably made from the verb on the model of pugna (“fight”).^[7][1]

The verb survives in Aromanian as alumtu, with a prefixed ⟨a-⟩.^[5][9][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian lottare, French lutter, Occitan luchar, Spanish luchar and Portuguese lutar.^[5][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form luptară “they fought” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[11] The Psaltirea Scheiană has the verb in the sense “to fight against”: „Apără ceia ce se luptă cu mere” “defend me from those who fight with me” (Psalm 34:1).^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The oldest Romanian sense is the Latin one, “to grapple with someone body to body, to wrestle”; from it come “to wage war” and, figuratively, “to struggle against a difficulty” and “to strive for something”.^[2][12] Old texts also use it transitively, “to combat”: Varlaam's Cazania urges Christians to fight the devil and defeat him with fasting and prayer.^[4][3]

The phrase se luptă ziua cu noaptea “day and night are fighting” means “day is breaking”.^[2] A prefixed înlupta “to defeat” is recorded in Transylvania.^[5]

Timeline

• early 16th century – luptară in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[11]
• c. 1573–1578 – se luptă “they fight” in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4][3]
• 1649 – lupt glosses Slavonic verbs of fighting in Mardarie's lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – lupta in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive, reciprocal) To fight someone hand to hand; to wrestle.^[2][3][1]
2. (reflexive, reciprocal or intransitive) To wage war, to be at war with someone.^[2]
3. (reflexive or intransitive, figurative) To resist; to struggle to overcome a difficulty or obstacle.^[2]
4. (intransitive, figurative) To strive to obtain something: Au luptat ani de zile pentru dreptul la pământ.^[2]

Word family

• luptător
• luptaci

Related words

• luptă
• Aromanian alumtu
• Latin luctor

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 i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 606
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1408
4. ^ 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. lupta
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. luptă
6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 86
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 86
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5148
11. ^ a b 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 128:1
12. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lupta
13. ^ 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. lupt
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 32:24