oprire

Forms

oprire f (plural opriri)^[1]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of the verb opri, formed from Romanian opri + -re.^[2][3][1] The verb itself comes from Old Church Slavonic опрѣти (oprěti).^[4][5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun is recorded in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, in Psalm 68:2: „Afunduiu-me în tina de afundu și nu e oprire” “I sank into the mire of the deep, and there is no standing”, that is, no foothold.^[6][7][5] This is earlier than the first record MDA2 gives for the verb opri, from 1574.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Coresi's homiliary of 1581 uses it for the ceasing of an action: „Oprirea amu binelui începătoriu răului fi-va” “the stopping of good will be the beginning of evil”.^[6] The old language also used it for holding someone back by force, arrest, damming, strictness and a ban; the 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss with it Slavonic words for prohibition and restraint.^[5][8][3] Nineteenth-century dictionaries still give “interdiction, prohibition” first.^[9][10] In modern Romanian the sense “prohibition” is dated, and the word means the act of stopping and, concretely, a place where one stops.^[2][11]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – oprire in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, Psalm 68:2.^[7][5]
• 1581 – oprirea “the stopping” in Coresi's homiliary.^[6]
• 1589 – oprirea in a Coresi psalter, Psalm 75:6.^[12]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[8]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible, Micah 5:1.^[13]
• 1862 – Pontbriant glosses it “stop, obstacle, arrest, prohibition, halt”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of stopping or of coming to a halt; the ending of an action or a movement: fără oprire “without stopping, continuously”.^[2][5]
2. A place where someone or something stops; a stop, a station.^[2][1]
3. Holding back, detention.^[2][5]
4. (dated) A prohibition, a ban.^[2][5]

Related words

• opri
• oprit
• opreliște
• opreală

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. 746
3. ^ 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. opríre
4. ^ 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. opri
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 217
6. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. oprire
7. ^ 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 68:2
8. ^ a b 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. oprire
9. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 266
10. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 444
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 274
12. ^ 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 75:6
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mic 5:1
14. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 512