peți

Forms

peți (third-person singular present pețește, past participle pețit), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *petiō, a popular form beside Latin petō (“to make for; to ask, request”).^[2][3][1] DEX, MDA2 and the DLR give the Latin verb alone.^[4][5][6] Ciorănescu cites Philippide, Densusianu, Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu and the REW, and compares Italian pezzire, an Old Neapolitan word for “to beg for alms”, pezzente “beggar”, and Spanish pedir and Portuguese pedir “to ask”.^[2][7] DELI and Nocentini trace the Italian noun to the present participle of the Vulgar Latin verb.^[8][9] Sardinian pedire belongs here too.^[7][3]

Romanian narrowed the Latin “to ask” to “to ask for a girl in marriage”;^[3][10] Candrea and Densusianu note that the marriage sense is found in Spanish and Portuguese as well.^[3][10] The Latin verb is traced to Proto-Indo-European *péth₂eti (“to fly”), with a shift from “to fly towards” to “to try to reach”.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is of 1593, in a document.^[12] MDA2 and the DLR start from the Romanian–Latin glossary of the Anonymus Caransebesiensis (c. 1650–1700).^[5][6] The sense is the one the word still has: to ask for a girl's hand.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Asking for a bride is usually done through her parents or relatives, and the verb covers both asking for oneself and asking on another's behalf: Bogdan peți de la Alexandru, regele Poloniei, pe sora sa, Russo wrote, “Bogdan asked King Alexander of Poland for his sister's hand”.^[6][4] Marian notes that those who go to ask for a girl “go a-wooing”, se duc a peți.^[6] From the verb came pețitor “suitor; matchmaker”, pețitoare “matchmaker” and pețitorie “matchmaking”.^[2] Graur takes pețitor straight from Latin petītor.^[13]

Regionally the verb means to act as a go-between in a deal, and in criminals' slang “to betray, to inform on”.^[5][14]

Timeline

• 1593 – the first record, in a document.^[12]
• c. 1650–1700 – peți in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[5][6]
• 1801 – Petzésc, glossed Latin proco “to woo”, in Klein's dictionary.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) to ask for a girl's hand, to woo or propose to her, for oneself or on behalf of someone else, usually through her parents or relatives: A venit s-o pețească pentru fiul lui. “He came to ask for her hand for his son.”^[4][5][1]
2. (regional) to act as a go-between in business or a deal.^[5]
3. (slang) to betray, to inform on someone.^[14]

Word family

• pețit
• pețitor
• pețitorie
• pețire
• pețitoare

Related words

• petiție
• repeta
• apetit
• competiție
• Latin petō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. peți
3. ^ a b c d Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
4. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 811
5. ^ 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, 364
6. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. peți
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6444
8. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 479
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ 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. peți
13. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 74
14. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. peți
15. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 417