oaspete

Forms

oaspete m (plural oaspeți)^[1] oaspe, the older form of the singular: „Mergi de spală picioarele oaspelui” “go and wash the guest's feet” (a text of about 1705).^[2][3] ospe: „O, dulce ospe, la mine vino” “O sweet guest, come to me” (a text of about 1600–1650).^[2] Old and regional variants include oaspăt, oaspet and oaspeț.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin hospes (“guest; host”).^{[6][4][5][3][1]} The old form oaspe continues the nominative.^[6][7] Wiktionary derives the longer form from the accusative hospitem, while Candrea and Densusianu explain it as remade after the plural.^[1][7] Ciorănescu compares the two forms with om and with Spanish sierpe beside serpiente.^[6] The word survives south of the Danube as Aromanian oaspe (also oaspi) and Megleno-Romanian oaspiț.^[6][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian ospite, Old French ost, French hôte, Spanish huésped and Portuguese hóspede.^[6][9]

The Latin noun is a compound of hostis (“stranger”) and the root of potis (“able”), from Proto-Italic *hostipotis.^[10][1] It is cognate with Proto-Slavic *gospodь (“lord”).^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the old form oaspe in the Psaltirea Voronețeană (c. 1551–1558), at Psalm 119.^[11][3] MDA2 dates the word to Coresi's Apostol of 1563, where the plural oaspeți is used of visitors who came to someone.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Latin hospes meant both the host and the guest, and the sense “guest” prevailed in Romanian.^[10][12] MDA2 still records a rare sense “host”, and in some regions the word names a wedding guest or the man who comes to a wedding with the bride's father.^[4] It is also used of official visitors to a country or institution.^[5][4] Poets call migrating birds the guests of the house: Alecsandri wrote „Oaspeții caselor noastre, cocostârci și rândunele” “the guests of our houses, storks and swallows”.^[13]

In Aromanian the cognate has come to mean “friend”.^[3][8] The verb ospăta “to feast, to entertain guests” may be a Romanian derivative of oaspe or continue Latin hospitō; ospătar and ospătărie are formed on it.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1551–1558 – oaspe in the Psaltirea Voronețeană, the first record.^[11]
• 1563 – oaspeți in Coresi's Apostol.^[4][2]
• 1649 – oaspeți in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – oaspe and oaspeți in the Bucharest Bible.^[15]
• c. 1705 – oaspelui “of the guest” in a manuscript copied in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A guest: a person who visits someone at home, or who is given hospitality.^[5][4][1]
2. An official visitor to a country or an institution, or an invited guest at a ceremony or performance.^[5][4]
3. (regional) A wedding guest.^[5][4]
4. (rare) A host.^[4]

Related words

• ospăta
• ospăț
• oaste
• Aromanian oaspi

Usage notes

The old singular oaspe is still used beside oaspete.^[5][2] Scriban notes a rare feminine, oaspetea, and DLR quotes Bolintineanu's plural oaspetele for women guests.^[12][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. oaspe
3. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. oaspete
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 180
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 727
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. oaspe
7. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
8. ^ a b Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 772
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4197
10. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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 119:5
12. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 883
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 235
14. ^ 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. oaspeți
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Acts 10:6