săpa

Forms

săpa (first-person singular present sap, third-person singular present sapă, past participle săpat, third-person subjunctive sape), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *sappāre, a verb formed on Late Latin sappa (“mattock, hoe”).^[2][3][4][1] Ciorănescu lists it as a Romanian derivative of sapă “hoe”, but adds that it may come straight from the Vulgar Latin verb, as Pușcariu and Tiktin hold.^[5] The Late Latin noun is of uncertain origin;^[1] Meyer-Lübke thought of an Illyrian word.^[1]

The verb survives in Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian: Aromanian sap and Megleno-Romanian sap.^[5][6][7] Its Romance relatives include Italian zappare, Spanish zapar and French saper.^[4][1] The French verb was borrowed from Italian.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the 16th-century psalters: the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century has săpară “they dug” in Psalms 21 and 56.^[9] In Psalm 56 the enemies dig a pit before the psalmist.^[10] Tiktin and MDA2 cite the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant digging with the hoe: working the soil, digging a pit, a ditch or a grave, and getting something out of the ground.^[3][11] The sense “to engrave, to carve” in stone or wood was common in the old Bible translations; the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the 17th century gloss sap with Slavonic words for carving.^[12][4] Water and rain were said to undermine a bank.^[11] From this came the figurative “to undermine, to plot against”: a Moldavian chronicle says that while Antioh Vodă dug trenches at Tighina, others dug against him at the Porte.^[4][11] Șăineanu took this last sense from French saper.^[13] Regionally the verb also means “to row”.^[2]

Timeline

• early 16th century – săpară “they dug” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[9]
• c. 1573–1578 – the verb in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[2]
• 1649 – sap “I dig, I carve” in Mardarie's lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – săpa “to engrave” and “to dig (a well)” in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To work or break up the soil with a hoe or a spade, for sowing or weeding.^[11]
2. To dig a hole, a pit or a ditch in the ground.^[11]
3. To dig something up out of the ground: a săpa cartofii “to dig up the potatoes”.^[11][15]
4. To carve or cut into stone or wood, to engrave; figuratively, to leave or take a deep mark, to imprint.^[11]
5. Of water, rain and the like: to wear away, to undermine; figuratively, to plot against someone.^[11]

Word family

• săpător
• săpătură

Related words

• sapă
• Aromanian sap

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 773
3. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. săpa
4. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. săpa
5. ^ a b 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. sapă
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 915
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, 150
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ 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 21:18
10. ^ 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 56:9
11. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 980
12. ^ a b 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. sap
13. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 565
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Exodus 28:9
15. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. săpa