porunci

Forms

porunci (third-person singular present poruncește, past participle poruncit), 4th conjugation^[1] The Psaltirea Scheiană has porânci, with the perfect porăncit-ai “you have commanded”.^[2] The 1688 Bible has porânci beside porunci, and Moldavian texts have poronci: „au poroncit Poarta să nu-i omoare” “the Porte ordered that they should not be killed” (Neculce).^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic порѫчити (porǫčiti, “to entrust, to charge with”), from Proto-Slavic *porǫčiti.^[5][6][3][1] The Slavonic verb meant “to entrust, to put into someone's hands”.^[7] Ciorănescu compares Hungarian parancsolni.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), where the verb, spelled porânci, means “to command”.^[6][3][2]

Semantic evolution

Romanian narrowed the Slavonic sense “to entrust” to “to command”, and in the old texts God and the law command: the 1688 Bible has „și norilor voi porunci ca să nu ploao la ea ploaie” “and I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it” (Isaiah 5:6).^[3][4] Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of 1649 glosses Slavonic words for “entrust” and “command” with poruncesc.^[8] From the order to do something came “to order something to be made” and “to order food or drink”, the senses of modern comanda.^[9][3] In Transylvania, Banat, Maramureș and Bukovina it also means “to send word”: in Maramureș one asks a villager on the road ce poruncești acasă? “what message do you send home?”.^[3][10]

Timeline

• c. 1573–1578 – porânci “to command” in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[6][2]
• 1581 – porunci in the Palia de la Orăștie: Joseph orders his brothers' sacks filled with grain.^[4]
• 1649 – poruncesc in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[8]
• 1688 – porunci and porânci in the Bucharest Bible.^[3][11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To command: to order with authority that something be done: Căpitanul a poruncit oamenilor să tragă bărcile la mal.^[9][6][1]
2. To order something to be made: și-a poruncit o haină la croitor; to commission.^[9][3]
3. To ask for something to be brought, especially food or drink; to order.^[9][6]
4. (popular) To send word, to pass on a message.^[9][12]
5. (intransitive) To be master, to rule.^[9][6]

Word family

• poruncă
• porunceală
• poruncitor

Related words

• comanda
• ordona

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A. (1916), Psaltirea Scheiană comparată cu celelalte psaltiri din sec. XVI și XVII traduse din slavonește, vol. II: Glosarele, București: Socec, p. 357
3. ^ 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. porunci
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. porunci
5. ^ 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. porunci
6. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 478
7. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org, p. s.v. порѫчити
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. poruncesc
9. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 853
10. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. porunci
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Isaiah 5:6
12. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. poruncí