provoca

Forms

provoca (third-person singular present provoacă, past participle provocat, third-person subjunctive provoace), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French provoquer, with Latin prōvocāre beside it in DEX, DLR, MDA2, MDN and Wiktionary,^{[2][3][4][5][1]} and DN adds Italian provocare.^[6] It is a 19th-century neologism with several models.^[6][5] Negulici entered it in 1848 as provocare with the Latin form.^[7] The Latin verb is formed from prō- (“forth”) and vocō (“to call”), literally “to call out”, hence “to challenge, rouse”;^[8] French took it from Latin in the 12th century.^[8] Graur lists it with convoca, evoca, invoca and revoca, the other Romanian loans of the Latin family.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Cuciuran's description of hospitals of 1842, in the sense of being called on to answer: „Sînt provocat a-i face următoarele întrebări” “I am called upon to put to him the following questions”.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The 19th-century senses were “to call upon, summon” (now obsolete), “to challenge to a fight or a duel”, as in Barițiu and Filimon, and “to stir up, incite”.^[3][4] DEX's second sense is “to cause, bring about” (of a reaction or an event).^[2][4] Transylvania and Bukovina once used the reflexive a se provoca “to refer (to)”.^[4] An old variant was provocarisi.^[3]

Timeline

• 1842 – provocat “called upon” in Cuciuran, the first record.^[4][3]
• 1846 – provocându-l “challenging him” in a periodical.^[3]
• 1848 – provocare in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To provoke, incite or goad someone, usually by defiance;^[2][4] (law) to drive someone, by violence or insult, into a state that favours a crime.^[2][4]
2. (transitive) To cause, bring about; specifically, to produce an event or a process on purpose: Ploile au provocat inundații. “The rains caused floods.”^[2]
3. (transitive) To challenge someone to a contest, a fight or a duel.^[2][4]

Word family

• provocare

Related words

• provocație
• provocator
• Latin prōvocō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 890
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. provoca
4. ^ 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, 580
5. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. provoca
6. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. provoca
7. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. provocare
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 110