puți

Forms

puți (third-person singular present pute, past participle puțit, third-person subjunctive pută) 4th conjugation^[1] Old Romanian had the first person puț and the subjunctive să puță, beside today's put and să pută.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pūtiō (“to stink”), with a change of conjugation from pūteō (“to stink, to rot”).^[4][5][2][1] The Latin verb is related to pūs (“pus”).^[6] Megleno-Romanian has put.^[4] The same fourth-conjugation form underlies Italian putire, Occitan pudir, Catalan pudir, Sardinian pudire and Old French puir, whence French puer.^[4][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Coresi's Tetraevanghel of 1561, in John 11:39.^[2] In Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură of 1581 Martha says of her dead brother „Doamne, că va puți; a patra zi iaste” “Lord, he will stink; it is the fourth day”.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

The core sense, to give off a bad smell, has not changed.^[5][9] Old Romanian also used the verb for “to smell” without the negative sense, and figuratively for “to resemble”.^[3] Tiktin records a transitive use, “to smell something”.^[2] Many proverbs and phrases use it: lauda de sine pute “self-praise stinks”, a puți locul sub cineva “to be very lazy”, nici nu pute, nici nu miroase “neither good nor bad”.^[9][5]

Colloquially it also means “to be full of something”: pute piața de mere “the market is teeming with apples”.^[5] Romanian formed împuți, împuțit “stinking; lazy” and pucios “foul-smelling”, the source of pucioasă “sulphur”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1561 – in Coresi's Tetraevanghel (John 11:39), the first record.^[2]
• c. 1573-1578 – put in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[10]
• 1581 – va puți in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[9][3]
• 1660 – in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons, for Slavonic смръдит “it stinks”.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stink, to give off a bad smell; with a, to smell of: pute a usturoi.^[5][1]
2. (colloquial, figurative) To be full of, to teem with: pute orașul de turiști “the town is swarming with tourists”.^[5][12]
3. (popular) With a, to show signs of something coming: pute a scandal “there's trouble brewing”.^[12]

Word family

• pucios
• împuți
• împuțit
• pucioasă

Related words

• putoare

Usage notes

Phrases: a puți locul sub cineva or a-i puți cuiva și urma “to be bone idle”, a puți a pustiu “to be empty”, nici nu pute, nici nu miroase “so-so”.^[5][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. puți
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 611
4. ^ 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. puți
5. ^ 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. 902
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6876
8. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. puți
10. ^ 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 113:14
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. pute
12. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. puți