nevinovat

Forms

nevinovat m or n (feminine singular nevinovată, masculine plural nevinovați, feminine/neuter plural nevinovate)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian ne- + vinovat, “not guilty”.^[2][3][4][1] Tiktin and Scriban give the same analysis.^[5][6] The base vinovat is itself from Old Church Slavonic виноватъ (vinovatŭ).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is in the oldest Romanian psalter, the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, from Psalm 17:26 on.^[8] The Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583) is MDA2's first record.^[3] The old sense was “without sin, blameless”: a psalter quoted by the DLR has „Fuse nevinovată calea mea” “my way was blameless”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word meant “without fault, without sin, righteous”, the sense of the psalters and of Coresi.^[4] The Bible of 1688 also used it for a man free of obligations: a newly married man should not go to war but stay „nevinovat ... întru casa lui” “free in his house”.^[4][9] MDA2 records the senses “exempt from debts” and “free” as old and rare.^[3]

The modern sense “innocent, untouched by evil, guileless” is quoted from Heliade, Alecsandri, Eminescu and Creangă: Creangă called childhood the only time that is merry and innocent.^[4] From it came “naive” and “harmless”.^[2][3] The noun nevinovăție “innocence” is recorded from 1709, in Antim Ivireanul.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – nevinovat in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean, MDA2's first record.^[3][5]
• 1649 – glosses Slavonic неповинное “guiltless” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – 55 occurrences in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• 1709 – the noun nevinovăție in Antim Ivireanul.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. innocent, not guilty: having no blame; often used as a noun, un nevinovat “an innocent person”.^[2][3]
2. Untouched by evil, unable to do wrong; pure in heart, inocent, candid; by extension inexperienced, without artifice, naive.^[2]
3. Showing innocence or candour: o privire nevinovată “an innocent look”.^[2][12]
4. Hiding nothing bad; harmless, inofensiv.^[2]
5. (obsolete) Without sin, righteous; exempt from obligations, free.^[3][4]

Word family

• nevinovăție

Related words

• vinovat

Usage notes

A face pe nevinovatul is said of a guilty person who behaves as if blameless.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 715
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 151
4. ^ 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. nevinovat
5. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. nevinovat
6. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 870
7. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1484
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 17:26
9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Deuteronomy 24:5
10. ^ 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. nevinovat
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ieșirea 21:28
12. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. nevinovat