pedepsi

Forms

pedepsi (third-person singular present pedepsește, past participle pedepsit), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Byzantine Greek παιδεύω (paideúō, “to bring up, to educate; to chastise”), taken over from its aorist stem, ⟨ἐπαίδεψα⟩ (epaídepsa).^[2][3][1] Ciorănescu names Byzantine Greek as the source, while DEX, DLR and MDA2 name the Modern Greek aorist επαίδεψα (epédepsa).^[2][4][5][6] The Greek verb is formed from Ancient Greek παῖς (paîs, “child”) with the suffix -εύω (-eúō).^[7][1]

The verb survives south of the Danube: Aromanian pidipsescu (“to punish, to chastise”)^[8][9] and Megleno-Romanian pidipses (“to toil, to suffer”).^[10][2] Ciorănescu compares Serbo-Croatian pèdepsati, recorded from the 14th century, and Bulgarian forms of the same Greek origin.^[2]

Tiktin thought that the sense “to punish” may have been helped by Church Slavonic наказати (nakazati), which meant both “to instruct” and “to chastise”.^[3] Ciorănescu finds no need for such an influence: the step from “to train” to “to punish” is a natural one, as in disciplinar and in Old French chastiier (“to instruct”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1500.^[3] In the psalters of the 16th century it renders “to chastise”: Coresi's psalter of 1570 has the prohibition nu… pedepsi “do not chastise” in Psalm 37:1,^[11] and the Psaltirea Scheiană has pedepsi-me “he chastened me”.^[12][5]

Semantic evolution

The Greek verb first meant “to bring up a child”, then “to educate”; already in ancient Greek it also meant “to correct, to discipline”, sometimes by punishment, and in medieval Greek “to torment”.^[7] Old Romanian kept the sense “to teach, to educate”: the preface of the Bible of 1688 speaks of people pedepsiți întru a noastră limbă “educated in our language”,^[5][6] the same Bible, in the Book of Esther, has o au pedepsit pre ea “brought her up”, rendering ἐπαίδευσεν (epaídeusen),^[3] and a Mineiul of 1776 has Și-ș pedepsi copilul la carte “and he put his child to school”.^[13][5] This sense is now obsolete.^[6][1]

The sense “to punish” is the one in use today.^[4][3] The reflexive a se pedepsi meant “to torment oneself, to suffer”: Nicolae Costin tells of men whose hands and feet were cut off and who were left de se pedepseau până ce mureau “to suffer until they died”.^[3] DEX marks the senses “to torment” and “to suffer” as old and regional.^[4] MDA2 also records a regional sense “to defame”.^[6] The noun pedeapsă “punishment” was formed from the verb.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – the first record, as Tiktin dates it.^[3]
• 1570 – nu… pedepsi “do not chastise” in Coresi's psalter (Psalm 37:1).^[11]
• c. 1573–1578 – pedepsi-me “he chastened me” in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[12][5]
• 1688 – pedepsiți “educated” in the preface of the Bucharest Bible, MDA2's first record.^[6][5]
• 1776 – pedepsi “to send to school, to teach” in a Mineiul.^[13]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses it with Latin punio and erudio.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To punish someone for a fault or an offence; to condemn.^[4][6] Legea pedepsește furtul cu închisoarea.^[4]
2. (figurative, dated and regional) To make someone suffer; reflexive, to suffer, to torment oneself.^[4][6]
3. (obsolete) To teach, to educate, to train.^[6][5]

Word family

• pedeapsă
• pedepsitor
• pedepsibil
• pedepsire
• pedepsit

Related words

• Aromanian pidipsescu
• Ancient Greek παιδεύω (paideúō)

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. pedepsi
3. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pedepsi
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 796
5. ^ 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. pedepsi
6. ^ 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, 331
7. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1079
8. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 2, 74
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 818
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 221
11. ^ 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 37:1
12. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A. (1916), Psaltirea Scheiană comparată cu celelalte psaltiri din sec. XVI și XVII traduse din slavonește, vol. II: Glosarele, București: Socec, p. 352
13. ^ a b Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 221
14. ^ 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. 415