repaus

Forms

repaus n (plural repausuri)^[1] The old form is răpaos: the Bucharest Bible of 1688 says of the unclean spirit that it „trece pren locuri seci căutând răpaos și nu află” “passes through dry places seeking rest and finds none” (Matthew 12:43).^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *repausum (“rest”), a noun made on the Late Latin verb repausō (“to halt awhile, rest”).^[2][3][4][1] The verb is formed from re- and pausō (“to halt, cease”), from pausa (“pause”), which came from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis, “stopping, ceasing”).^[1] Graur groups it with the verb răposa, which continues the Latin verb itself.^[5]

Tiktin notes that the old form was răpaos and that the modern ⟨repaus⟩ and repaos were remodelled on Latin, after French repos.^[2] The word survives south of the Danube as Aromanian arãpas.^[6][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian riposo, Spanish reposo, Portuguese repouso and Catalan repòs.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[3] There the psalmist says „Străbătum pren foc și apă, scoase-ne în rrăpaos” “we went through fire and through water, and thou broughtest us out into rest” (Psalm 65).^[4] The sense is “rest, relief from toil”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word meant rest from work or from trouble.^[4][2] A text of about 1600 speaks of the rest owed to the holy Sunday: „Vai de omul cela ce no-ș va da răpausu sfinta domerecă” “woe to the man who will not give holy Sunday its rest”.^[4] In church language it also meant eternal rest.^[3] MDA2 also records the sense “sleep”.^[3] Regionally it meant a halt on a journey.^[3]

The Latinized repaus and repaos are the forms of the modern literary language.^[2] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 glosses repausŭ as the stopping or absence of motion, rest, quiet and sleep.^[9] Eminescu wrote „Mi-e sete de repaos” “I thirst for rest”.^[2][10] Technical senses followed in physics, philosophy and animal husbandry.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – rrăpaos in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3][4]
• 1570 – răpaus in Coresi's Psalter (Psalm 22:2).^[12]
• c. 1600 – răpausu “rest” of the holy Sunday.^[4]
• 1649 – răpaos in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – răpaos in the Bucharest Bible (Matthew 12:43).^[2]
• 1870 – repausŭ “rest, quiet, sleep” in Costinescu's dictionary.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. rest, repose: a state in which activity stops for a time so that the body recovers its strength; inactivity.^[11][3][1]
2. A temporary break in an activity;^[11][14] Pe loc repaus! is the command “stand at ease!”.^[11][14]
3. (physics) The state of a body whose points do not change position relative to a frame of reference.^[11][3]
4. (philosophy) A moment of motion that is relative to it.^[11]
5. (dated, church) Eternal rest; also sleep.^[3]
6. (biology) repaus mamar: the dry period between the end of one lactation and the next calving of cows or lambing of ewes.^[11]

Related words

• răposa
• Aromanian arãpas

Usage notes

Fără repaus means “without a break, unceasingly”: A lucrat toată noaptea fără repaus.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. repaus
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 691
4. ^ 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. repaus
5. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 69
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 131
7. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 38
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 108
9. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 427
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 724
11. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 943
12. ^ 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 22:2
13. ^ 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. răpaos
14. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. repaus