puternic

Forms

puternic m or n (feminine singular puternică, masculine plural puternici, feminine/neuter plural puternice)^[1] The old texts spell it putearnic: „Că de sîntem putearnici, toate să le isprăvim” “for if we are able, let us accomplish them all” (Coresi, 1581).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Romanian putere (“power, strength”) + -nic, with a suffix of Slavic origin.^{[3][2][4][5][6][1]} Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of putea “to be able”, from which the noun is formed.^[7][8] The verb goes back to Vulgar Latin *potēre, from Latin possum (“to be able”).^[1]

Wiktionary says the new formation displaced the older vârtos “strong”, which Tiktin compares.^[1][5] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 derived the word from Latin potēns (“powerful”), a view of its time.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to the Psaltirea Voronețeană of the mid-16th century, and the psalter index finds putearnic there in Psalm 83:13; the Psaltirea Ciobanu has it too, and Coresi's psalter of 1589 has it in Psalms 23:8 and 47:7.^[5][10] MDA2 dates the first record to 1581, Coresi's Carte de învățătură, where it means “able, capable of doing something”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The oldest sense is “able, capable”, as in Coresi and in the Palia of 1581.^[2][3] From it came the senses of physical strength, of firm and tenacious character, and of power and influence; the old language also used it for “well versed in something” and “convincing”.^[3][2] As a noun it names the powerful, puternicii, and in a folk text puternicele are the evil fairies.^[5][6][11]

The modern senses extend it to machines, to loud sounds and bright light, to deep feelings, swift rivers and strong medicines.^[4][6] In a regional glossary of Muntenia it is said of fertile land.^[12] Compounds include atotputernic “almighty”, said of God, and preaputernic.^[7][11]

Timeline

• c. 1551–1558 – putearnic in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[5][10]
• c. 1573–1585 – putearnic in the Psaltirea Ciobanu.^[13]
• 1581 – putearnici “able” in Coresi's Carte de învățătură, MDA2's first record.^[3][2]
• 1581 – putearnic in the Palia.^[2]
• 1589 – the spelling puternic in Coresi's psalter.^[14]
• 1682 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1688 – puternicii in the Bucharest Bible.^[16]
• 1801 – in Klein's dictionary, glossed with Latin potens.^[17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having great physical strength, robust (of beings and parts of the body); solid (of things); prominent (of facial features).^[4][3]
2. Having great mechanical or driving power (of machines and tools).^[4]
3. Strong, intense: of a voice or sound, of light, of feelings, of a fast river, of a drug that acts at once.^[4]
4. Having influence or authority; holding power;^[4][6] (as a noun) a person in a leading, influential position.^[4][6]
5. Endowed with great organisational, political or economic force; capable of large-scale action.^[4]
6. (figurative) Weighty in content; sound, cogent.^[4]

Word family

• atotputernic
• preaputernic
• neputernic

Related words

• putere
• putea
• putință

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. puternic
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, 609
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 902
5. ^ 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. puternic
6. ^ a b c d e Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1080
7. ^ a b 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
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 608
9. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 566
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 83:13
11. ^ a b Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. puternic
12. ^ Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. s.v. puternic
13. ^ 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 83:8
14. ^ 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 23:8
15. ^ 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. puternic
16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Luke 12:11
17. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 428