ruina

Forms

ruina (third-person singular present ruinează, past participle ruinat) 1st conjugation^[1] Regional variants include ruiena, roina, roena, ruini and rueni.^[2] A folk text in Graiul nostru has „s-a ruenit” “it fell into ruin” of an abandoned hermitage.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ruīnō (“to overthrow”), also borrowed from French ruiner, a neologism.^[4][2][3] Tiktin gives only the New Latin verb, Wiktionary only the French.^[5][1] The Latin verb is formed from ruīna (“collapse, ruin”), and the French one from ruine.^[1] The REW lists the Latin verb with Italian rovinare “to ruin”.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1791, in a document published in the historical series of the Romanian Academy's Analele.^[5] MDA2 dates it from the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Negulici's dictionary of neologisms of 1848 has it as ruinare, glossed with Latin evertere and the native a dărâma “to pull down”, a surpa, and, of a person's fortune, health or credit, a dărăpăna “to wreck”.^[7] The two strands have stayed: the physical decay of buildings, and figuratively the loss of fortune or health.^[4] In the DLR's quotations, Negruzzi writes of a hypocrite who „îl înșală, îl ruinează” “deceives him, ruins him”, and Eminescu of a man who „se ruina din zi în zi” “was going to ruin day by day”.^[3] The verb also spread to the dialects, where the variants rueni and roina are recorded.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1791 – the first record, in a document of the Academy's historical series.^[5]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[2]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms, with the senses “pull down” and “wreck one's fortune or health”.^[7]
• 1893 – Damé marks it as a neologism.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive and transitive) To fall or turn into ruin; to dilapidate, decay.^[4][2]
2. (figurative) To lose one's fortune or make someone lose theirs; to impoverish, destroy: Datoriile l-au ruinat.^[4]
3. (figurative) To ruin one's own or someone's health.^[4][2]
4. (figurative, transitive) To spoil, compromise.^[2][3]
5. (figurative, reflexive) To decline morally.^[2][3]

Related words

• ruină

Usage notes

The present is ruinez, ruinează.^[4] Negulici in 1848 still conjugated it without the suffix, ruin, ruini, ruină.^[7] It is pronounced in three syllables, ru-i-na.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 734
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. ruina
4. ^ 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. 966
5. ^ 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. ruina
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7432
7. ^ a b c Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. ruinare
8. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. ruina