pretutindeni

Forms

pretutindeni (adverb), variant pretutindenea^[2][1] Old texts have many forms in -ea, -re and -le: Coresi writes pretutindinea in „Ieși veaste pretutindinea de el” “word of him went out everywhere”.^[3][4] Varlaam has pretutindere: „Tocmiseră și domni răi pretutindere” “they had set up wicked rulers everywhere”.^[3]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[5][1] DEX analyses it as from Romanian pre + tutindeni, the old form of the preposition pe “on, over” and an old adverb meaning “everywhere”, itself of Latin origin.^[2] Ciorănescu sees in it the Romanian words for “over” and “all” (tot) with an obscure third element, and compares the ending of aiurea.^[5]

Pușcariu traced the word to a Latin phrase per (“through”) tōtum (“whole”) inde (“from there, thence”),^[6] the last element having been proposed by Miklosich;^[5] MDA2 and the DLR give the same three Latin elements.^[7][3] Candrea and Densusianu preferred unde (“whence”) as the last element, with the ending ⟨-re⟩ of the variant pretutindere added.^[5] Tiktin accepts the Latin origin of the first part, comparing French partout and Italian dappertutto, but finds the rest obscure, since neither Latin adverb fits the sense well.^[4] The simple Istro-Romanian pretöt has the same sense “everywhere”.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form pretutindirea “everywhere” in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583).^[7][3] The same form occurs in the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), Psalm 48:1.^[8][4]

Semantic evolution

The meaning “everywhere, in every place” has not changed; preceded by de the adverb means “from everywhere”.^[7][9] The old language used a wide range of forms, with the endings -ea, -re, -le and their combinations (pretutinderelea, pretutindenelea), and forms with pe- or pă- for pre-.^[4][7] Scriban gives pretutindeni as the western form and pretutindenea as the eastern one, and called the word rare in his day.^[10]

Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 records a-și vârî nasul pretutindeni “to poke one's nose into everything”, matching French fourrer son nez partout.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – pretutindirea in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[7][3]
• c. 1573–1578 – pretutindirea in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[8][4]
• 1581 – pretutindinea in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[3]
• 1660 – pretutindenea in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – pretutindenea four times in the Bucharest Bible, first in Mark 1:45.^[13]
• 1870 – a-și vârî nasul pretutindeni in Costinescu's dictionary.^[11]

Meanings

Adverb

1. everywhere: in every place, all over.^[2][7]
2. de pretutindeni: from every side, from all over: Au sosit vești de pretutindeni.^[7][9]

Related words

• pe
• tot

Usage notes

The variant pretutindenea is also standard.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 871
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pretutindeni
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. pretutindeni
5. ^ a b c d 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. pretutindeni
6. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 121
7. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 528
8. ^ 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 48:1
9. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 558
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1044
11. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 351
12. ^ 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. pretutindenea
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mk 1:45