putere

Forms

putere f (plural puteri)^[1] Old texts write puteare: the Palia of 1581 has „cu toată puteare am slujit tătâni-vostru” “with all my strength I served your father”.^[2]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of putea, formed from Romanian putea + -re.^[1][3][4][2] The verb is from Vulgar Latin *potēre, the analogical form that replaced Latin possum (“to be able”) in spoken Latin.^[3][5][6] The verb survives south of the Danube as Aromanian pot, with the noun puteare, and as Istro-Romanian pot; its Romance cognates include Italian potere, Spanish poder and French pouvoir.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the noun to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (early 16th century), which has the plural puterile “the powers”, at Psalm 20:14 among other places.^[4][7] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Ciorănescu lists the senses the noun developed: strength and vigour, rule and government, authority and mandate, one of the powers of the state, a sovereign state, and old senses now lost, an army, a multitude and a miracle.^[3] The army sense appears in Miron Costin, where puterea leșilor is the whole Polish force.^[8] A popular sense is the height or middle of something, as in în puterea nopții “in the dead of night”, and another the material means of a person.^[9][3] Mathematics and mechanics later took it for “power”.^[9][1]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – puterile in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[4][7]
• 1581 – puteare “strength” in the Palia.^[2]
• 1589 – putere in a Coresi psalter.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. ability, capacity to act or to do something.^[9][1]
2. Great physical strength: din toate puterile “with all one's might”.^[9]
3. Intensity; effectiveness; validity.^[9]
4. authority, rule, domination: a fi în puterea cuiva “to be at someone's mercy”.^[9]
5. A state, especially a strong one: mare putere “great power”.^[9][1]
6. Government: a fi la putere “to be in power”.^[9]
7. A right, legal authorization: cu de la sine putere “on one's own authority”.^[9][3]
8. (popular) Material means, wealth.^[9][1]
9. (popular) The height, the middle: în puterea iernii “in the depth of winter”.^[9][3]
10. (mathematics) A power of a number.^[9][1]

Word family

• puterință
• puternic

Related words

• putea
• putință
• Aromanian puteare

Usage notes

În toată puterea cuvântului means “in the full sense of the word”.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. putere
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. putea
4. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 608
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6682
6. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
7. ^ 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 20:14
8. ^ 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. putere
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 901
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 17:35