prăda

Forms

prăda (third-person singular present pradă or prădează, past participle prădat) 1st conjugation^[1] Tiktin gives the old present prad, prazi, pradă and the subjunctive să prade.^[2] Forms with -ez appear by 1800: Budai-Deleanu writes prădează and prădeze in the Țiganiada.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin praedō (“to plunder”), according to DEX, MDA2, Tiktin, Candrea–Densusianu and the REW.^{[3][4][2][5][6]} Latin had this active form beside the usual deponent praedor.^[7] Wiktionary sets up Vulgar Latin *praedō in its place.^[1] Ciorănescu lists the verb under pradă, as a derivative that may directly continue the Latin verb.^[8] The Latin verb is formed from praeda (“booty, plunder”).^[9][1]

It survives as Aromanian prad.^[8][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian predare, Old French preer, Portuguese prear and Sardinian preare “to distrain”.^[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, from the early 16th century, with prădară “they plundered” in Psalm 136.^[4][10] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The chroniclers use it for armies laying a land waste: Ureche writes that Ștefan Vodă „dat-au … voie oștii sale să prade în trei zile cât vor putea în Țara Românească” “gave his army leave to plunder Wallachia for three days, as much as they could”.^[2][11] From robbing a country it passed to robbing a person of his goods, and then to ruining someone by heavy taxes and fines.^[4][3] Other senses are now old or regional: fire destroying property, killing someone, sacrificing animals, and squandering money.^[4][2] Of beasts and birds of prey it means to catch living prey.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – prădară in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10][4]
• c. 1573-1578 – the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[12][2]
• 1620 – le prăda turcii țara in Moxa's chronicle.^[11]
• 1649 – prad in Mardarie's lexicon, for a Slavonic verb “to take captive”.^[13]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible, with prăda, prădară and prădat many times.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, popular) To plunder, devastate, lay waste a country or region.^[3][4][1]
2. To rob someone of valuable goods.^[3][15]
3. To ruin, impoverish someone by violence or by crushing taxes and fines.^[3][4]
4. (regional) To squander money or goods.^[4][2]
5. (of beasts and birds of prey) To catch living prey.^[4]

Word family

• prădăciune
• prădător
• prădare

Related words

• pradă
• Aromanian prad

Usage notes

DEX gives the present prad;^[3][15][1] NODEX conjugates it with -ez (prădez), and Wiktionary lists pradă as the prescribed third person and prădează as an alternative.^[3][15][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. prăda
3. ^ 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. 1, 860
4. ^ 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, 500
5. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. prăda
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6715
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c 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. pradă
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b 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 136:3
11. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. prăda
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 52:8
13. ^ 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. prad
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gn 14:11
15. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. prăda