plângere

Forms

plângere f (plural plângeri)^[1]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of plânge (“to weep”), formed from Romanian plânge + -re.^[1][2][3][4] The verb is inherited from Latin plangō (“to beat the breast, lament”).^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, with the sense “weeping, lament”.^[4][6] The DLR quotes it there: „audzi Domnul glasul plângeriei mele” “the Lord heard the voice of my weeping”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The old sense, weeping and lamentation, runs through the psalters, Coresi's prints and the chronicles: Ureche tells how the country buried Stephen the Great „cu multă jale și plângere” “with much grief and weeping”.^[7][2] The phrase valea plângerii, earlier vale de plângere, “the vale of tears”, names the world as a place of suffering.^[7][3] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss Slavonic words for weeping and lament with it.^[8]

The sense “complaint addressed to an authority” has its earliest DLR quotation in R. Popescu's chronicle, and one of 1848 from a newspaper: „a adresat o plângere către ministerul francez” “he addressed a complaint to the French ministry”.^[7] In law it is the formal referral of an act of the administration to a court.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – plângere “weeping” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[4][6]
• c. 1551–1558 – in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[9]
• 1570 – in Coresi's psalter.^[6]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[8]
• 1688 – frequent in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]
• 1848 – “a complaint to an authority”, in a newspaper.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of weeping; plâns, lament.^[3][4]
2. valea plângerii: the vale of tears, the world as a place of suffering.^[3][4]
3. (law) The referral of an administrative act, or of an authority's refusal to act, to a court for review.^[3]
4. A complaint addressed to an authority; the written document that makes it; a reclamație.^[3][7]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. plângere
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, p. 831
4. ^ 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, 413
5. ^ 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. plînge
6. ^ a b c 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 29:6
7. ^ 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. plângere
8. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. plîngere
9. ^ 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 101:10
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 50:10