manipula

Forms

manipula (third-person singular present manipulează, past participle manipulat) 1st conjugation^[1] Pontbriant (1862) also has an old variant mânipula, reshaped after mână “hand”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French manipuler, as DEX, MDA2, the DLR and Wiktionary agree.^[4][5][2][1] The French verb is borrowed from Medieval Latin manipulāre.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pontbriant's dictionary of 1862 is the first record in the sources, glossing it with French manipuler “to work, operate with the hand”.^[3][2] MDA2's first record is a quotation from Ion Ghica, cited in CADE, about the men who negotiated and “manipulated” the operations of state loans.^[5][7]

Semantic evolution

CADE gave a laboratory sense, working a substance by hand to break it down or transform it, and the general sense of handling; Șăineanu in 1929 had the chemical sense and the handling of public money.^[7][8] The DLR quotes Maiorescu for a figurative use with language as the material, and later texts for operating instruments and machines.^[2]

The sense now most common, influencing a person or a group by psychological or political means, spread in the press after 1990: Dimitrescu quotes “sunt manipulat” “I am being manipulated” from 1990 and a 1993 complaint that radio and television manipulate opinion.^[9] DEX 1998 still gives only handling, DEX 2009 adds the figurative sense.^[10][4]

Timeline

• 1862 – manipula and mânipula in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[3][2]
• 1893–1895 – the verb with its conjugation in Damé's dictionary.^[11]
• 1929 – Șăineanu: handling chemical substances, and public money.^[8]
• 1990 – “sunt manipulat” in the press, the figurative sense.^[9]
• 2009 – DEX adds the sense “to influence the thinking of a person or group”.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To handle or operate a substance, a tool or a machine: Laborantul manipulează substanțele cu mănuși.^[4][5]
2. To carry out financial operations with money or credit, buying, selling and moving it between accounts.^[5][2]
3. (figurative) To manipulate: to influence the way a person or a community thinks and acts by various means.^[4][12][9]

Related words

• mânui
• manevra
• French manipuler

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. manipula
3. ^ a b c Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 617
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1429
6. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. manipuler
7. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească
8. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 382
9. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)
10. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 597
11. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État
12. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. manipula