respinge

Forms

respinge (present resping, third-person singular present respinge, past participle respins, third-person subjunctive respingă) 3rd conjugation^[1] An older spelling is răspinge: Alecsandri writes „bătrânul care te-o răspins cu vitejie de la zidurile cetății” “the old man who drove you back bravely from the walls of the fortress”.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is probably a Romanian formation, from Romanian res- + împinge (“to push”), with res- taking the place of the first syllable of the verb.^[4][2][3] DER prefers the same explanation, with the prefix răs-, to the Italian source that Tiktin's first edition and Candrea had given.^[5] MDA2, Tiktin and the DLR compare Italian respingere.^[4][3][2]

DEX, Graur and Wiktionary instead take it from the Italian verb.^[6][7][1] The Italian verb is formed from re- and spingere (“to push”), and is recorded from before 1388.^[8][1] The base verb continues Latin impingō.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from about 1710, in Nicolae Costin's chronicle, in the military sense “to drive back”: „împăratul fu respins de Salmaș Hișpanul cu mare vitejie” “the emperor was driven back by Salmaș the Spaniard with great valour”.^[3] Tiktin found no other records for the 18th century and the first half of the 19th;^[4] DER also dates it to the 18th century.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The military sense, to hold off an attack and force the enemy back, is the one of the oldest quotations;^[4] MDA2's first record, a history of Moldavia of 1845, tells of a garrison that repelled every assault.^[4][2] From there it spread to pushing someone away, as opposed to attracting, and to throwing something back.^[2][6]

The abstract sense, to refuse or reject a request, a proposal or an accusation, is now the first in DEX.^[6][9] The present participle respingător gives the sense “repulsive”, and MDA2 records the use of failing a candidate in an examination.^[5][4]

Timeline

• c. 1710 – respins “driven back” in Nicolae Costin's chronicle, the first record.^[3]
• 19th century – the spelling răspins in Suțu's notes.^[3]
• 1845 – respingea in a manual of Moldavian history, MDA2's first record.^[4][2]
• 1875 – in Antonescu's Romanian–French dictionary, glossed “repousser, rejeter”.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To reject, refuse, not admit: a respinge o cerere “to turn down a request”.^[6][1]
2. (transitive) To push away from oneself, put aside; to throw back.^[6][4]
3. (transitive, military) To repel an armed attack, to force the enemy to retreat.^[6][2]
4. (transitive) To fail a candidate in an examination.^[4]
5. (figurative, rare) To stifle a feeling or impulse.^[6][1]

Word family

• respingător

Related words

• împinge
• pinge

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. respinge
3. ^ 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. respínge
4. ^ 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, 696
5. ^ a b c 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. respinge
6. ^ 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. 946
7. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
8. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 546
10. ^ Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 268