parcurge

Forms

parcurge (third-person singular present parcurge, past participle parcurs, third-person subjunctive parcurgă) 3rd conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French parcourir, adapted to the conjugation of curge “to flow”.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The French verb, from the 13th century, remakes Latin percurrō (“to run through”) after courir (“to run”).^[6] The Latin verb is per- (“through”) and currō (“to run”).^[7]

An old variant percurge goes back directly to the Latin verb, again shaped by the Romanian verb.^[5][4] A first-conjugation parcura, closer to the French infinitive, also occurs and is now obsolete.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Ion Ghica's Amintiri din pribegia după 1848, letters to Alecsandri published in 1889: „parcurând de câte zece și cincisprezece ori distanța” “walking the distance ten or fifteen times over”.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant covering a road or a distance from end to end, and soon also running through a period or a course, as in a life or a stage of development.^[5][3] From looking along something it came to mean running one's eyes over a page, and then reading quickly or leafing through a book; Șăineanu's dictionary already gives a parcurge o carte.^[5][4] The past participle parcurs became a noun for the distance covered.^[2]

Timeline

• 1889 – parcurând “walking (a distance)” in Ion Ghica's letters to Alecsandri, the first record.^[5][4]
• 1955–1957 – the DLRLC lists the senses “to cover (a distance)” and “to read through hastily”.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To travel a road or a distance from one end to the other, to cross.^[3][4][1]
2. To run one's eyes over something, to look at it in passing.^[3][4]
3. To read quickly and superficially, to leaf through a book or a newspaper, and generally to read.^[3][4][9]
4. To live through or spend a period of time in a given place or way.^[3]

Word family

• parcurs
• percurs
• parcurgere

Related words

• curge
• străbate

Usage notes

The verb is conjugated like curge: present parcurg, simple past parcursei, past participle parcurs.^[10][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. parcurge
3. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic
4. ^ 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, 269
5. ^ 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. parcurge
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. percurrō
8. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 324
9. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional
10. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România