pleca

Forms

pleca (third-person singular present pleacă, past participle plecat, third-person subjunctive plece) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin plicō (“to fold”).^[2][3][1][4] The word survives in Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian as Aromanian plec and Megleno-Romanian plec, both meaning “to bend” and “to leave”.^[2][5][6] Its Romance cognates are Italian piegare and French plier “to fold, bend”, and Spanish llegar and Portuguese chegar “to arrive”.^[2][1] Wiktionary traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ-.^[1]

How “to bend” became “to leave” is disputed: the usual view, held by Pușcariu, Wagner, Scriban and the REW, starts from folding the tents, compare the French phrase plier bagage (“to pack up and go”).^[2][4] Candrea and Densusianu thought of military language: to give ground, fall back, withdraw.^[7] Tiktin started from “to bend towards something”, and Corominas from applicō (“to head for”), which would also explain the Spanish sense.^[2] Ciorănescu himself preferred “to turn back”, as in French se replier.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of about 1500–1520, in the old sense “to bend, incline”: pleacă occurs eight times there.^[3][8] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană (Psalm 17:28).^[9]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th-century psalters the verb means “to bend, bow, incline”, of the head, the ear or the heart.^[8][9] From bending came the senses “to subdue” and, reflexive, “to yield, submit”, and the stars that “bend” are setting.^[10][2] The sense “to set off, depart” is quoted in the DLR from a law code (Pravila), Radu Popescu's chronicle and a text of about 1750, and it is now the main meaning.^[11][10][1]

Old “bending” senses live on in set phrases such as a-și pleca capul “to bow one's head, submit”, a-și pleca urechea “to listen closely” and a nu avea unde să-și plece capul “to have nowhere to rest one's head”.^[10][3] The derivative apleca keeps the meaning “to bend”, and plecăciune once meant a bow, a reverence.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – pleacă “bends” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3][8]
• 1570 – plecat in Coresi's Psalter.^[12]
• c. 1750 – au plecat la Ierusalim “they set off for Jerusalem”, a quotation for the sense “to depart”.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To leave, depart, set off; in sport, to start a race.^[10][1]
2. (transitive and reflexive) To bend, bow, incline, lower: a-și pleca fruntea “to bow one's head”; reflexive, to bow before someone.^[10][3]
3. (reflexive, of the sun or stars) To go down, set.^[10]
4. (transitive) To subdue, bring under one's power;^[10] (reflexive) to yield, give in;^[10] (popular) to be moved to pity.^[10]

Word family

• plecăciune
• plecat
• plecare

Related words

• apleca
• îndupleca
• Aromanian plec

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. pleca
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, 415
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6601
5. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 864
6. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 226
7. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. 228
8. ^ 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 16:7
9. ^ 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. pleca
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 831
11. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pleca
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 61:3