ospăta

Forms

ospăta (third-person singular present ospătează, past participle ospătat) 1st conjugation^[1] The Codicele Voronețean has uspătă: „În trei dzile soțu cu mîndrie nă uspătă” “for three days he entertained us courteously” (Acts 28:7).^[2][3] In Bukovina the present is oaspăt, oaspeți, and the subjunctive să oaspete occurs in folk verse.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin hospitō (“to entertain as a guest”), a verb formed on Latin hospes (“guest; host”).^{[5][3][4][6][1]} Classical Latin had the deponent hospitor.^[7][1] Ciorănescu treats the verb as a derivative of oaspe within Romanian, adding that it could also come from the Latin verb, as Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu, the REW and Tiktin hold.^[8]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian ospetu.^[8] Its Romance cognates are Spanish hospedar and Portuguese hospedar, while the Campidanese form ospedai comes from Spanish.^[6] prospăta “to invite, to treat well” in Transylvania is explained by Pușcariu and the REW from Latin *perhospitare, by Graur as formed with a prefix pre-, and by Ciorănescu as a local crossing with proaspăt.^[8][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean, a copy of the Acts of the Apostles from the third quarter of the 16th century, in the form uspătă: the chief man of Malta received Paul's company and entertained them for three days.^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is hospitality: to receive someone in one's house and give him food and drink.^[2][5] The New Testament of 1648 and Dosoftei use it in this way.^[2] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss Slavonic verbs for treating and regaling guests with it.^[9]

From the host the sense passed to the guest: intransitive and reflexive a (se) ospăta means “to eat, to feast”, as in Sbiera's tale where the empress dined on a barbel with great relish.^[10][4] DEX marks these uses as old and popular.^[5] The derivatives ospătar and ospătărie carried the word into the language of inns and restaurants.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – uspătă “entertained” in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][2]
• 1648 – ospătă in the New Testament of Bălgrad.^[2]
• 1660 – in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicon Lex.St.^[9]
• 1688 – ospătat in the Bucharest Bible (Acts 10:23).^[11]
• 1767 – a-i uspăta “to treat them” in a document.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To receive someone in one's home as a guest, offering food and drink; to entertain, treat: Ne-a ospătat cu pește și vin.^[5][3][1]
2. (intransitive and reflexive; old and popular) To eat; by extension, to feast, to make merry.^[5][3][1]

Word family

• ospătare
• ospătar
• ospătăriță
• ospătărie

Related words

• oaspete
• ospăț
• prospăta

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. ospăta
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 232
4. ^ 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. ospătá
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 755
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4199
7. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. ospăta
8. ^ a b c d 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
9. ^ 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. ospăta
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 291
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Fapte 10:23