petrece

Forms

a petrece (third-person singular present petrece, past participle petrecut, third-person subjunctive petreacă); 3rd conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pertrāiciō, from per- (“through”) and trāiciō (“to throw across, to cross”).^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} Tiktin explains the form through an intermediate form with ⟨pre-⟩, like precepe from Latin percipiō, which lost its first /r/ by dissimilation.^[5] Ciorănescu also speaks of dissimilation.^[5][2] The simple verb trece comes from the Latin verb directly.^[5][7] Graur, by contrast, lists the verb among the Romanian formations on that family.^[7]

The Aromanian pitrec means “to send; to see someone off”.^[8][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Psaltirea Voronețeană of the mid-16th century has the past tense petrecu.^[9] Tiktin cites the Codicele Voronețean at Acts 20:38, and MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

The oldest senses are spatial: to pass or make something pass through, behind or under something, to thread a needle or to sift through a sieve.^[3][5][4] From “to go through with someone” came “to accompany, to see off”, still used in a petrece la groapă “to follow to the grave”.^[2][5]

Applied to time, the verb meant “to spend, to live through”: unde ai petrecut vacanța? “where did you spend the holiday?”.^[5][10] From spending time pleasantly it came to mean “to enjoy oneself, to make merry”, which is now its most common sense, with the noun petrecere “party”.^[10][2][1] The reflexive means “to happen, take place”, and in the old language also “to come to an end, to die”.^[10][2]

Timeline

• c. 1551–1558 – petrecu in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[9]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 20:38).^[5]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3]
• 1688 – “to make pass through” in the Bucharest Bible.^[5][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spend time or one's life in a certain way or place; to live; reflexively, of time, to pass.^[10][1]
2. To have a good time, to party, to make merry.^[10][1]
3. (reflexive) To happen, to take place.^[10][2][1]
4. (reflexive, old and popular) To come to an end; to die.^[10][2]
5. To accompany someone, to see someone off.^[2][5][1]
6. To pass or thread something through, behind or under something.^[3][2]

Word family

• petrecere
• petrecător
• petrecanie
• petrec

Related words

• trece
• Aromanian pitrec

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. petrece
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 362
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. petrece
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. petrece
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 108
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 854
9. ^ 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 103:13
10. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 810