pluti

Forms

pluti (third-person singular present plutește, past participle plutit) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

Most dictionaries take it as formed from Romanian plută + -i, from the noun for a raft.^[2][3][4][1] The noun is from Bulgarian плута (pluta), with Serbo-Croatian forms beside it.^[2][5][1] The Bulgarian noun goes back to Proto-Slavic *pluta, formed with the suffix ⟨-ta⟩ on the stem of the verb *pluti (“to swim, sail”).^[6]

Ciorănescu and Tiktin instead take the verb directly from Old Church Slavonic плоути (pluti, “to sail, float”), and Ciorănescu makes the noun a back-formation from the verb or another Slavonic loan.^[7][8] Ciorănescu also compares Aromanian mplătescu (“to float”).^[7][9] The Slavic verb is related to Lithuanian pláuti (“to wash”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Bucharest Bible of 1688, of the waters of the Flood bearing the ark (Genesis 7:18).^[8] MDA2 dates it by a passage of Nicolae Costin's chronicle quoted in CADE: Noah's family alone was saved in the ark, „plutind pe deasupra-nalților munți” “floating above the high mountains”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is staying at the surface of water and moving on it, of ships, rafts and objects, and of people travelling by water.^[4][3] By the 19th century it was also used of birds and insects hovering or gliding in the air, as in Eminescu's lark floating in a clear sky.^[8][4] Further figurative senses followed: of stars moving across the sky, of sounds and smells spreading through the air, and of food swimming in fat or sauce.^[2][3] The phrase a pluti în aer means both “to be about to break out” and “to have no basis in fact”.^[2][3] A rare transitive use, “to float something along”, is Alecsandri's.^[8][11]

Timeline

• 1688 – “to float” in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 7:18).^[8]
• 1818 – the noun plută in the sense of the poplar, in Budai-Deleanu's lexicon.^[5]
• 1829 – “to sail” of merchant ships on the Danube.^[4]
• 1862 – Pontbriant gives French flotter, voguer and naviguer.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To float: to stay at the surface of a liquid, partly under it; to glide or move on the surface of a liquid; of people, to travel by water.^[2][3]
2. (intransitive, of food) To swim in fat or sauce.^[2][3]
3. (intransitive, of birds, insects) To hover or glide smoothly through the air;^[2][3] a pluti în aer “to be about to happen”, also “to be groundless”.^[2][3]
4. (intransitive, of heavenly bodies) To move across the sky; of sounds and smells, to spread through the air.^[2]
5. (intransitive, often figurative) To move gently in a real or imagined space; to persist, to prevail.^[2]
6. (rare, transitive) To float something along.^[8][3]

Word family

• plutire
• plutitor

Related words

• plută
• plutaș
• Old Church Slavonic плоути (pluti)

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 836
3. ^ 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, 430
4. ^ 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. plutí
5. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 429
6. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 5, 367
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. pluti
8. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. plutí
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 704
10. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 406
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 473
12. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 559