răni

Forms

răni (first-person singular present rănesc, third-person singular present rănește, past participle rănit), 4th conjugation^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic ранити (raniti, “to wound”), the verb of the Slavonic noun that gave rană.^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} The Slavonic verb comes from Proto-Slavic *raniti, formed on *rana (“wound”).^[1]

The same Slavonic verb gave Aromanian arãnescu (“to wound”).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, of the early 16th century, in Psalm 11: rrăni-va, for the Lord who will destroy deceitful lips.^[8][3][4] The sense there is “to destroy, root out”, as Candrea glosses the same form in the Psaltirea Scheiană, a sense MDA2 marks as very rare and old.^[9][3] The sense “to wound” appears in a Gospel text printed by Coresi: „batjocuri-vor el și vor răni el” “they will mock him and wound him”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

“To wound, injure” is the sense of the 17th-century texts and of the 1688 Bible, which has rănesc, rănit and răniți many times.^[10][5] The Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the 17th century use rănesc to render the verbs for wounding, starting with Mardarie's of 1649.^[11]

Figurative senses followed: to hurt someone's feelings, to offend; light that seems to cut through darkness, as in Eminescu's torches that „rănesc întunecimea” “wound the darkness”; and to be smitten with love.^[5][12][3] MDA2 also records an old sense “to defile”.^[3] Regional synonyms are rănăli and rănui.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – rrăni-va “will destroy” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8][3]
• 16th century – vor răni “they will wound” in a Gospel text printed by Coresi.^[5]
• 1649 – rănesc in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – rănesc, rănit and răniți in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]
• 1716 – „l-au rănit un turc la o mână” “a Turk wounded him in one hand”, of the king fighting the Turks.^[5][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, reflexive) To wound, injure; to hurt oneself: S-a rănit la picior când a căzut.^[2][3][1]
2. (transitive, figurative) To cause someone moral pain; to offend: Vorbele lui m-au rănit.^[2][3]

Related words

• rană

Usage notes

MDA2 and Tiktin list a separate răni, a form of râni “to clean out dung from a stable”;^[13] Klein's dictionary of 1801 already has it as Raenésc.^[3][4][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 916
3. ^ 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, 635
4. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. răni
5. ^ 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. răni
6. ^ 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. rană
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 131
8. ^ 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 11:3
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A. (1916), Psaltirea Scheiană comparată cu celelalte psaltiri din sec. XVI și XVII traduse din slavonește, vol. II: Glosarele, București: Socec, p. 366
10. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Numerii 19:16
11. ^ 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. rănesc
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 531
13. ^ a b 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. 429