merge

Forms

merge (third-person singular present merge, past participle mers, third-person subjunctive meargă), 3rd conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mergō (“to dip, plunge, sink”), with a change of meaning found only in Eastern Romance.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *mesg- (“to plunge, dip”).^[1] The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian njergu, Megleno-Romanian mierg and Istro-Romanian meg.^[2][6] Ciorănescu and Wiktionary compare Albanian mërgoj (“to move away”) and Sardinian imbergere (“to push”), the latter from Latin immergō.^[2][1]

How “sink” became “go” is not known.^[5] Candrea, followed by the DLR and other dictionaries, thought of shepherds in the mountains, where someone who leaves disappears among the trees as if sinking;^[7] Pușcariu linked it to the Romanians' move from the mountains to the plains.^[7] Ciorănescu assumes an intermediate sense “to fall”, seen in phrases such as „de-i merg petecele” “so that his rags fly”.^[2] The first edition of the REW proposed a blend of meō (“to go”) and pergō (“to proceed”), and Wiktionary also mentions these verbs;^[7][1] Graur notes that neither survives in Romance, points out that the short /e/ of the Latin verb should have become a diphthong, and compares French marcher.^[7][1] Tiktin explains the regional form mere, without /g/, by the influence of the verb for “to flow”, now curge.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, of the early 16th century, already has the form merg.^[8] MDA2's first record is the Codicele Voronețean, of about 1563, and Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

From “go, walk” the verb took figurative senses: of roads, “to lead, stretch”; of news, “to spread”; of machines, “to work”; of affairs, “to go well or badly”; and “to fit, to do”.^[2][9] With după it meant “to marry” (of a woman), and with pe and a number “to be nearly (so many years old)”.^[2] In Transylvania and Istria the verb has the form mere, which Ciorănescu takes as a sign of a very old change.^[2] Derivatives include mers “walk, gait; course”, mergător “traveller” and înainte-mergător “precursor”, a calque of the Slavonic and later the Latin word for “precursor”.^[2]

Timeline

• early 16th century – the form merg in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8]
• c. 1563 – the Codicele Voronețean.^[4]
• 1570s – the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go, walk, move from one place to another; of ships, to sail; of birds and planes, to fly.^[9][2]
2. To leave, set out, head for: Mergem acasă. “We are going home.”; to attend a school.^[9][1]
3. To go with, accompany someone;^[9][2] (in card games) to join the game.^[9][2]
4. (of roads, land) To stretch, lead to;^[9][2] (of news) to spread.^[9][2]
5. (of machines) To work, run: Ceasul nu merge. “The clock doesn't work.”^[9][2]
6. To fare, get on; to succeed; to progress: Cum îți merge? “How are you getting on?”^[9][2]
7. (of materials) To be needed, to be used up in a certain quantity.^[9][2]
8. To be possible or acceptable; to suit, match: Merge și așa. “It'll do like that too.”^[9][2]
9. (of money, documents) To be valid, be current.^[9]
10. To go about dressed in a certain way.^[9]

Word family

• mergător
• mergere
• mers

Related words

• Latin mergō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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. merge
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. merge
4. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1490
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5525
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 795
7. ^ a b c d Graur, Alexandru (1975), Alte etimologii românești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. merge
8. ^ 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 113:15
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 641
10. ^ 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 96:3