privi

Forms

privi (third-person singular present privește, past participle privit), fourth conjugation^[1] Old texts have previ and prăvi: Coresi writes „Cutremurat fu Moisi și nu cuteza previ” “Moses trembled and dared not look”, and Dosoftei „Să minunară toți ceia ce prăvea” “all who looked on marvelled”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old Church Slavonic правити (praviti, “to direct, govern”), as MDA2 and DLR state and DEX suggests.^[3][2][4][5] Wiktionary takes the same view, starting from the older form prăvi, and traces the Slavonic verb to Proto-Slavic *praviti (“to twist, turn”), from *pravъ (“right, straight”).^[1]

Ciorănescu calls the origin uncertain.^[6] He finds Tiktin's view the likeliest: a Slavonic verb meaning “to twist, turn”, which also exists in Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, so that the Romanian verb would be short for “to turn one's gaze”.^[6] The other proposals he lists are less clear: Slavonic привидѣти (prividěti, “to look”) (Miklosich, Cihac), which is difficult phonetically;^[7] Candrea's verb “to direct”, the etymon of MDA2; and Scriban's Slavonic verb “to show oneself”.^[6] Șăineanu also compared the verb for “to look”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500–1520), in the form previ: „Den ceriu previ Domnul a vedea toți feciorii omenești” “from heaven the Lord looked down to see all the sons of men”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The forms previ, prăvi and privi alternate in the 16th and 17th centuries: the Codicele Voronețean has prăviți, the Palia of 1581 priveaște, the New Testament of 1648 veți previ.^[2] MDA2 records old senses of prăvi such as “to witness” and “to lie in wait for”.^[3] Seventeenth-century lexicons gloss it with Slavonic verbs for “to see” and “to look into”.^[8]

From “to look at” the verb passed to “to consider, regard as” and, in the third person, “to concern”: Creangă's Însă ce mă privește? means “but what is that to me?”, and în ceea ce mă privește “as far as I am concerned”.^[9][4] Of buildings a privi spre means “to face towards”.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – first record, previ, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[3][2]
• c. 1563–1583 – prăviți in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2]
• 1581 – priveaște in the Palia.^[2]
• 1648 – veți previ in the New Testament.^[2]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses a Slavonic verb with privesc.^[8]
• 1675 – a manuscript of 1675 has priviia pre mare “looked out to sea”.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To look at, watch, gaze; reciprocal: to look at each other;^[4] a nu privi cu ochi buni to disapprove of.^[4]
2. To regard, consider, think of as.^[4]
3. (third person) To concern, be someone's business;^[4] în ceea ce privește as regards.^[4]
4. Of buildings, with spre or către: to face towards.^[3]

Word family

• priveală
• priveliște
• privință
• privire
• privitor
• privitură

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. privi
3. ^ 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, 552
4. ^ 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. 878
5. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
6. ^ 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. privi
7. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 514
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. privesc
9. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. privi