păpa

Forms

păpa (third-person singular present papă, past participle păpat) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pappō (“to eat soft food”), according to MDA2, DEX, the DLR, Șăineanu and Wiktionary.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The REW lists it with Italian pappare, Sardinian pappare, Old French paper and Spanish papar, Portuguese papar and the Occitan and Catalan forms.^[6] Pușcariu and Candrea and Densusianu proposed the Latin etymology.^[7] Ciorănescu derives it instead from Romanian papă (“food (in children's speech)”), an expressive word that may itself continue pappa.^[7] The Latin verb is formed on that noun, meaning “pap”;^[8][1] Wiktionary calls its origin unclear, perhaps a nursery word.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1805, and MDA2's is Budai-Deleanu's Romanian–German lexicon, which Tiktin cites for the children's word.^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

In children's speech, and ironically in adults', the verb means “to eat”: Creangă's wolf lies in wait to pape the kids.^[4][10] Figurative senses followed: to squander money or a fortune, to take something unfairly, and a păpa bătaie “to get a beating”.^[2][3] It forms the compounds papă-lapte “milksop” and papă-tot “glutton”.^[2][9]

Timeline

• 1805 – the first record.^[9]
• 1818 – in Budai-Deleanu's lexicon as a children's word for “to eat”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (childish, transitive) to eat.^[3][2][1]
2. (figurative, colloquial) to squander, to waste money or a fortune.^[3][1]

Related words

• papă

Usage notes

The compound papă-lapte is an invariable noun for a spineless, slow-witted person.^[3] A păpa bătaie means “to get a beating”.^[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, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 300
3. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 788
4. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. păpa
5. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 459
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b 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. papă
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. păpa
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 353