povestire

Forms

povestire f (plural povestiri)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian povesti + -re, the long infinitive of the verb used as a noun.^[2][3][1][4] The verb is from Romanian poveste (“story, tale”).^[2][3] That noun comes from Old Church Slavonic повѣсть (pověstĭ, “tale, narration”), as Ciorănescu, after Miklosich and Cihac, and MDA2 state.^[5][3] Wiktionary traces the Slavonic word to Proto-Slavic *pověstь, formed from *po- and *věstь (“message”), the source of Romanian veste as well.^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest form found is in the Bucharest Bible of 1688, at Joshua 9:24 and, as povestirea, at Habakkuk 2:6.^[6] Tiktin's first record is a text of 1692 printed in Gaster's chrestomathy, with the sense “narration, account”.^[4] MDA2 cites the same page of the chrestomathy, but its year 1550 comes from the title of Gaster's book, not from the text.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The noun first meant both the telling of something and the account itself.^[7][4] Older dictionaries also give a sense now lost, “a conversation between two or more people”: Klein's dictionary of 1801 glosses it with Latin narratio and confabulatio, the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 with collocutio and colloquium, and Pisone still does so in 1865.^[8][9][10] The verb povesti keeps a regional sense “to chat” to this day.^[2]

In the 20th century the word became a term of literary theory, a short narrative work smaller than a novel.^[11][12] DEX 1998 still described it as a short narrative with a lyrical background, while DEX 2009 defines it as an epic form told from the viewpoint of a participant, in an oral tone.^[11][2] Scriban had already set it apart from poveste: a povestire is the narration of a more or less real event.^[13] MDA2 records rare and regional senses: a fairy tale, an illustration in pictures, a sermon in church use, and in the plural gossip and slander, which match the old and regional verb sense “to speak ill of someone”.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1688 – povestire and povestirea in the Bucharest Bible.^[6]
• 1692 – a text printed in Gaster's chrestomathy, Tiktin's first record.^[4]
• before 1773 – “this was done sooner than the telling of it” in a quotation of the DLR.^[7]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses it with Latin narratio.^[8]
• c. 1800–1812 – „La povestirea ceastă duioasă” “at this moving tale” in Budai-Deleanu's Țiganiada.^[4]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda adds the sense “conversation”.^[9]
• 1862 – Pontbriant renders it with French récit, conte and narration.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of narrating something and its result: an account of an event or a series of events.^[2][3]
2. A short work of narrative prose, smaller than a novel; a short story: A citit o povestire de Sadoveanu în tren.^[2][12]
3. (rare) A fairy tale.^[3]
4. (regional, church) A sermon.^[3]
5. (rare, plural) Gossip; slander.^[3]

Related words

• poveste
• povesti
• povestitor
• veste

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 858
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 494
4. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. povestire
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. poveste
6. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Iisus Navi 9:24
7. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. povestire
8. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 423
9. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 533
10. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 307
11. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 832
12. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional
13. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1028
14. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 570