readuce

Forms

readuce (first-person singular present readuc, third-person singular present readuce, past participle readus, third-person subjunctive readucă), 3rd conjugation^[1][2] A rare variant radduce appears in Heliade: „Cu vearga sa plăpîndă în staul o radduce” “with his frail rod he brings it back into the fold”.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian re- + aduce, “to bring again”.^{[2][4][3][5][1]} DELR lists it in the family of the base verb.^[6] That verb is from Latin addūcō (“to lead to, bring”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1849, in a text of Cornea, with the sense “to bring back, to bring again”.^[6] MDA2 cites the same passage of Cornea.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The verb has kept one core sense: to bring someone or something back to its former place or state.^[2][3] The DLR records an obsolete use as a synonym of reduce.^[3][4] From the 19th century on it was used figuratively of things that bring back a mood or a memory, as when Eminescu's crickets and mice bring back his melancholy.^[3][8] Damé's dictionary glossed it with French ramener, and Antonescu with rapporter and ramener.^[9][10]

Timeline

• 1849 – first record, in Cornea.^[6]
• 1875 – listed in Antonescu's Romanian–French dictionary.^[10]
• 1893–1895 – in Damé's dictionary, conjugated like duce.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bring back someone or something to its former place or state; to restore.^[2][4][1]
2. (figurative) To bring back a feeling, a memory or a topic: Muzica i-a readus amintirea copilăriei.^[3][8]
3. (obsolete) To reduce.^[3][4]

Related words

• aduce
• duce

Usage notes

The prefix is pronounced as a separate syllable: re-a-du-ce.^[2][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 924
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. readuce
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 662
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. readuce
6. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. readuce
7. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 19
8. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 693
9. ^ a b Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. readuce
10. ^ a b Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 257