răpi

Forms

răpi (third-person singular present răpește, past participle răpit); 4th conjugation^[1] The oldest texts conjugate the verb without -esc: the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki has the present rapă.^[2][3] An old and popular variant is hrăpi: „Ei hrăpesc negoțul din mâna românilor” “they snatch the trade out of the Romanians' hands” (Alecsandri).^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rapiō (“to seize, carry off”), in the fourth-conjugation form *rapīre that replaced the Classical infinitive ⟨rapere⟩.^[6][3][5][1] It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian arachiu and Megleno-Romanian răpes.^[6][7][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian rapire and French ravir.^[6][8] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₁rep- (“to snatch”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the present rapă in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century (Psalm 9:32).^[2] A text of about 1550–1580 has „Și răpi coconul și fugi cătră mare” “and he snatched the child and fled towards the sea”, and the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), MDA2's first record, uses it of snatching a man “from their midst”.^[9][3] The sense is “to seize by force and carry off”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

From seizing and carrying off a person, a girl in particular, the verb came to be said of death, which “snatches” the living, and of life or days taken away, that is, of killing.^[4][3][5] It was used of goods taken unjustly, of plunder, and of a country or territory seized.^[3][5] The figurative sense “to carry away, to enchant” occurs in Miron Costin, who describes a prince as „la mânie răpit” “easily carried away by anger”; Șăineanu traced the modern “to enchant” to French ravir.^[4][10] The derivatives răpitor “predatory; enchanting” and răpitură “loot” are Romanian, while rapt “abduction” was taken from French.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – rapă in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2]
• c. 1550-1580 – „Și răpi coconul și fugi cătră mare”.^[9]
• c. 1563-1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3]
• 1570 – răpească in Coresi's psalter.^[2]
• 1649 – răpesc glosses Slavonic въсхищаю in Mardarie's lexicon.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To abduct, to kidnap: to take someone away by force; to take someone from among the living; to tear someone away from a place.^[5][3]
2. To seize what belongs to another, to plunder; to annex a territory;^[5] (figurative) to deprive someone of what is due to them: Grijile i-au răpit somnul.^[5]
3. (figurative) To enchant, to captivate.^[5]

Word family

• răpitor
• răpitură
• răpire

Related words

• Aromanian arachiu

Usage notes

MDA2 has two rarer words of the same spelling: a merge în răpi “to go fast”, a phrase of north-western Muntenia of unknown origin, and răpi “to breathe hard”.^[3][9] Regionally răpi also means “to dig deep”.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 9:32
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 637
4. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. răpi
5. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 916
6. ^ 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. răpi
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 246
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7049
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. răpi
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 532
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. răpesc
12. ^ Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. răpi