pieri

Forms

pieri (third-person singular present piere, past participle pierit, third-person subjunctive piară) 4th conjugation^[1] Old and Moldavian texts have peri: Ureche writes „câți n-au peritu de copaci, i-au prins vii” “those who did not perish under the trees they took alive”.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pereō (“to pass away, perish”).^{[5][2][6][3][4][7]} The Latin verb is formed from per- (“through”) and eō (“to go”).^[1][8] Ciorănescu notes that the word is in general use throughout the Romanian area.^[3]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian cher and Megleno-Romanian per.^[3][9][10] Its Romance cognates include Italian perire, French périr, Catalan perir, Spanish perecer and Portuguese perecer.^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, with the sense “to die, perish”.^[6][2] The present pier is in the Psaltirea Voronețeană (c. 1551–1558) and in Coresi's psalter of 1570.^[11] Tiktin's first record is the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the verb meant first “to pass from view, vanish”, then “to be destroyed, perish”.^[8] Romanian kept both: “to die”, usually a violent death, and of plants “to wither”, then “to be destroyed, to come to an end”; and “to vanish”.^[5][4] In old texts it could also be transitive, “to kill”, and in the language of the church it meant “to incur divine punishment”.^[6]

Feelings, sounds and speech “perish” too: i-a pierit glasul “his voice failed him”, i-a pierit laptele “her milk dried up”.^[4][5] The imperative piei! became a curse: Piei din ochii mei! “out of my sight!”^[4][5] Popular speech says a pieri după cineva “to be madly in love with someone”.^[6]

Its derivatives include pieritor “mortal” and nepieritor “immortal”.^[3] Ciorănescu explains pieire “ruin, death” as a false infinitive for pierire, with the /r/ lost as in piei for pieri.^[3] Candrea derived piericiune “destruction” from Latin peritiō, which Ciorănescu rejects.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[6][2]
• c. 1551-1558 – pier and piară in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[11]
• c. 1573-1578 – piere in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[12][4]
• 1581 – „voi peri cu toată casa mea” “I shall perish with all my house” in the Palia.^[2]
• 1688 – pieri throughout the Bucharest Bible.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (of living beings) To perish, to die, usually a violent or untimely death, and (by exaggeration) a pieri de frică “to be frightened to death”.^[5][6]
2. (of plants) To wither, to dry up.^[5][6]
3. To be destroyed or ruined; to cease to exist.^[5][6]
4. (of feelings, states, sounds, light) To come to an end, to fade away: i-a pierit glasul “he was struck dumb”.^[5]
5. To vanish without trace; to be stolen.^[5]
6. To disappear suddenly from someone's sight: Piei din fața mea! “get out of my sight!”^[5][4]
7. (popular) A pieri după cineva: to be madly in love with someone.^[6]

Word family

• piericiune
• pierire
• pieritor
• nepieritor
• pieritură
• pieire

Related words

• Aromanian cher
• Latin pereō

Usage notes

The second-person imperative is piei (rarely pieri); old and regional speech also has the subjunctive să pieie beside să piară.^[6][5] The phrase nu piere lumea means “it is not the end of the world”.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. pieri
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. pieri
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pieri
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 816
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 376
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6415
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 598
10. ^ 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. 1, 104
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 91:9
12. ^ 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 1:6
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 19:15
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. pieri