plimbare

Forms

plimbare f (plural plimbări)^[1] The older and eastern form is primblare: Neculce writes „era ieșit Duca Vodă la primblare cu toată casa” “Prince Duca had gone out for a ride with all his household”.^[2] Preumblare was also usual in the 19th century: Gorjan describes a garden „pentru preumblarea și petrecerea împărătesei” “for the empress's walks and amusement”.^[2][3] MDA2 lists the further variants plinbare, prăîmblare, preămblare, preîmblare and prinblare, and regional prămblarie and premblare.^[4]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of the verb plimba, used as a noun: from Romanian plimba + -re.^[5][4][6][1] The verb itself is usually traced to Latin perambulō (“to walk through”), as by Ciorănescu, who notes that among the Romance languages it survives only in Romanian;^[7][4] Tiktin instead takes the verb for a Romanian formation from pre and umbla.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Cazania de la Govora of 1642.^[6] MDA2 cites the Moldavian law code of Vasile Lupu's reign, in its 1912 edition.^[4] The early quotations in DLR have primblare for a prince's outing: Neculce's chronicle tells that Duca Vodă had gone out „la primblare cu toată casa”, and Miron Costin uses the same phrase of an emperor.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant the act of walking, riding or driving about for pleasure, and in the old language also a place made for such walks, a promenade: Golescu wrote in the 1820s that Bern had a lit walk for day and night.^[3][5] That concrete sense is now obsolete.^[5][4] Scriban recorded plimbare as the form of the west and south and primblare as that of the east and north.^[9]

From the 19th century the figurative phrase a trimite pe cineva la plimbare “to send someone for a walk” came to mean to get rid of someone, to dismiss or to refuse to talk to them.^[10][9][5] The sense widened to a pleasure trip or a journey, and to any movement of people or animals from place to place.^[5][4] MDA2 also records an old sense “privy”, as for the derivative plimbătoare.^[4][7]

Timeline

• 1642 – first record, in the Cazania de la Govora.^[6]
• c. 1743 – primblare “outing” in Neculce's chronicle.^[2]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary sends the reader from plimbare to preumblare.^[11]
• 1893–1895 – Damé glosses it “promenade” and records trimite-l la plimbare.^[10]
• 1939 – Scriban gives plimbare for the west and south, primblare for the east and north.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A walk or stroll: going about at leisure to relax or get some fresh air;^[5][4][1] Am făcut o plimbare prin parc. “We took a walk in the park.”^[5][4][1]
2. A pleasure trip, a drive or a journey.^[5][4]
3. The movement of people or animals from one place to another.^[4]
4. (obsolete) A place laid out for walking, a promenade.^[5][4][12]

Related words

• umbla
• Latin perambulō

Usage notes

A trimite (pe cineva) la plimbare (colloquial): to get rid of someone, to send someone packing, or to dismiss them from a job.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. plimbare
3. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 465
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 421
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 833
6. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. plimbáre
7. ^ a b 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. plimba
8. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. plimbá
9. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 998
10. ^ a b Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. plimbare
11. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 307
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 488