rupe

Forms

rupe (third-person singular present rupe, past participle rupt, third-person subjunctive rupă), third conjugation^[1] The older form rumpe (simple past rumse, participle rumt) survives regionally.^[2][3] Coresi has it: „rumpea lanțurile” “he broke the chains”.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rumpō (“to break, burst”).^{[3][2][4][5][1]} The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *Hru-n-p- (“to break”), a present with a nasal infix.^[6][1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian arup, Megleno-Romanian rup and Istro-Romanian rupu.^[3][7][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian rompere, French rompre, Catalan rompre, Spanish romper and Portuguese romper.^[3][9]

The derived noun for “breach, fracture” may come straight from ruptūra, like Italian rottura and French roture.^[3][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the 16th-century psalters: Coresi's Psalter of 1570 has rupse “broke” (Psalm 106).^[11] Tiktin and MDA2 cite the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), from its second psalm on.^[12][2] The sense was physical: breaking chains or bonds.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From “to tear, break into pieces” the verb took on “to break a bone”, “to wear out” clothes, “to tear apart” as a beast does, and “to pluck, tear off”.^[13][3] Figurative uses followed: “to break off” relations or a silence, and a rupe cuiva inima “to break someone's heart”.^[13][12] A rupe prețul or a rupe târgul is “to agree on a price after long haggling”, whence ruptoare “bargain”.^[3][13]

With the feminine pronoun, a o rupe means “to break with” a habit or a person, a o rupe la fugă “to break into a run”, and a o rupe franțuzește “to speak broken French”.^[13][14][1] In Moldavia ruptă named a lump-sum tax introduced in the early 19th century, and ruptaș its payer, a word that passed into Russian.^[3] Recent slang has mi se rupe “I don't care”.^[15]

Timeline

• 1570 – rupse in Coresi's Psalter.^[11]
• c. 1573–1578 – the Psaltirea Scheiană, the first record in MDA2.^[2][12]
• 1581 – rumpea lanțurile in Coresi's Evanghelia cu învățătură.^[4][2]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible: „Și-ș rupse Iacov hainele lui” “and Jacob tore his clothes” (Genesis 37:34).^[12]
• early 19th century – ruptă, a Moldavian tax.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To break or tear a material, to split something into two or more pieces.^[13][1]
2. To fracture a limb: și-a rupt piciorul “he broke his leg”.^[13][16]
3. To break off, interrupt: relations, a silence.^[13]
4. To wear out by use: a rupe pantofii “to wear out one's shoes”.^[13][17]
5. To tear apart, maul.^[13]
6. To pluck, tear off: a flower, a leaf.^[13]
7. (colloquial) To speak a foreign language badly.^[18][1]

Word family

• rupt
• ruptă
• ruptaș
• ruptoare
• ruptură
• ruptănos
• prerupe
• rupere

Related words

• corupe
• întrerupe
• Aromanian arup
• Latin rumpō

Usage notes

Many expressions use the verb: a-și rupe gâtul “to come to grief”, a o rupe cu cineva “to break with someone”, a rupe frontul “to break through the front”.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 737
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. rupe
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. rupe
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7442
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 156
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 253
9. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7455
11. ^ a b 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 106:14
12. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. rupe
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 967
14. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 556
15. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. rupe
16. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. rupe
17. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 643
18. ^ Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 523