priveghea

Forms

priveghea (first-person singular present priveghez, third-person singular present priveghează, past participle privegheat) 1st conjugation^[1][2] The texts of the 16th and 17th centuries write prev- and have the old present privéghiu, privéghi, privéghe;^[3] Dosoftei writes „sufletul tău ți-l priveaghe cu drag” “he watches over your soul with love”.^[3] The variant privighea is regional today.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pervigilō (“to stay awake all night”),^{[4][5][6][3][2]} with the syncopated Vulgar Latin form *perviglō.^[1] The Latin verb is formed with per- on vigilō (“to stay awake”),^[7] which gave the simple Romanian verb veghea.^[8]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian priveglju.^[4][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583).^[6] Tiktin's is the Psaltirea Scheiană, Psalm 101:8,^[3] and the DLR quotes the psalm verse: „Privegheaiu și fuiu ca pasărea ce însingură-se în zid” “I watched, and became like a bird alone on the wall”, in the sense of a night of prayer.^[5] The Psaltirea Ciobanu has priveghe in Psalm 126:2.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The DLR puts first the church sense, to spend the night in prayer and meditation: the New Testament of 1648 has „prevegheați cu mine” “watch with me”.^[5] The general sense “to stay awake at night” is as old: „derept însă prevegheați că nu știți în care ceas Domnul vostru va veni” “watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come”.^[5][3] From these came keeping a wake by a dead person, keeping guard, lying in wait, and looking after someone or something.^[2][6] In Transylvania the form priveghi also means to spend the nights carousing.^[6]

Ciorănescu lists the derivatives priveghere, priveghetor “watchman, supervisor”, in Moldavia a sub-prefect, an office set up by Cuza's decree of 24 January 1859, privighetoare, first “a woman who keeps watch” and in Transylvania the candle lit at a dead man's head, then the nightingale, and priveghi “watch; the wake before a burial”.^[4] He also reports, after Candrea, that a Ruthenian prewetje and a Serbian privek “night festival” came from Romanian.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – first record, in the Codicele Voronețean.^[6]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană, Psalm 101:8.^[3]
• c. 1573–1585 – priveghe in the Psaltirea Ciobanu, Psalm 126:2.^[10]
• 1648 – prevegheați in the New Testament.^[5]
• c. 1660 – privegheat in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – privegheați in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1859 – priveghetor, the title of a Moldavian sub-prefect.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (popular) To keep watch, stand guard;^[2][6] (transitive) to lie in wait for, follow.^[2][6]
2. (popular, transitive) To supervise, look after someone or something; to take care that something happens.^[2]
3. (popular) To stay awake at night; specifically, to keep the night vigil by a dead person: Au privegheat toată noaptea lângă sicriu. “They watched all night by the coffin.”^[2][6][1]
4. (religion) To spend the night in prayer and meditation.^[6][5]
5. (Transylvania, as priveghi) To spend the nights in revelry.^[6]

Word family

• privighetoare
• priveghi
• priveghere
• priveghetor

Related words

• veghea
• supraveghea
• Aromanian priveglju

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 878
3. ^ 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. priveghea
4. ^ a b c d e 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. priveghea
5. ^ 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. priveghea
6. ^ 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, 552
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ 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. veghia
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 855
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 126:2
11. ^ 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. privegheat
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mt 24:42