sfârși

Forms

sfârși (third-person singular present sfârșește, past participle sfârșit), 4th conjugation^[1] Old and regional variants are svârși and fârși.^[2] The Palia has svârși: „Și mainte decât aceastea cuvinte svârși, iaca ieși Răveca” “and before he had finished these words, behold, Rebekah came out”.^[3] Tiktin quotes fârșesc from a book of sermons: „cei mai mulți din oameni … la podoaba trupului fârșesc avuția lor” “most people spend their wealth on adorning the body”.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic съврьшити (sŭvrĭšiti, “to complete, to accomplish”) according to DER, DLR, MDA2 and DEX, and DLR and MDA2 add the contracted form свръшити (svrŭšiti), which is closer to the Romanian sound.^[5][3][2][6] DER follows Miklosich and Cihac.^[5] Wiktionary instead takes it from Bulgarian свърша (svărša) and the older Slavonic verb.^[1] Șăineanu took it as a shortened form of săvârși, which comes from the same Slavonic verb and keeps the fuller form.^[7][8][1] The two Romanian verbs are thus doublets.^[1]

DER also lists the Megleno-Romanian verb, which it writes sfășǫs.^[5] The Slavonic verb is formed with the prefix съ- (sŭ-) on връшити (vrŭšiti).^[1] The BER and Vasmer link it with the word for “top” (Bulgarian връх (vrăh)): the first sense was “to bring something to the top, to the end”.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century: sfârșește at Psalm 28:8 and the participle sfârșit at Psalms 39:9 and 48:8.^[11][2] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană and Coresi's Gospel book: „Și fu deaca sfârși Is[us] pilda aceasta, trecu de acia” “and when Jesus had finished this parable, he went on from there” (Matthew 13:53).^[4]

Semantic evolution

From “to bring to an end, finish” the verb soon also meant “to use up” (Coresi: „săgeatele meale sfârși-voi într-înși” “I will spend my arrows on them”) and “to accomplish, carry out”, a sense it shared with săvârși.^[4] Used of a person as object it means “to kill”, and reflexively “to die”: a o sfârși cu viața “to take one's own life”.^[4][2][6] The reflexive also came to mean “to grow faint, to be worn out”, the sense of the derivative sfârșeală.^[6][5]

Old senses now lost include “to carry out” a court sentence, “to ripen” of plants and “to receive”.^[2] Modern Romanian has a sfârși prin a… “to end up doing…”.^[6] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it to render Slavonic скончати “to finish”.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – sfârșește in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[11][2]
• 1570 – sfârși in Coresi's Psalter.^[13]
• 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4]
• 1581–1582 – the variant svârși in the Palia.^[3]
• 1648 – in the New Testament of Bălgrad.^[3]
• 1660 – the lexicons gloss Slavonic “to finish” with sfârși.^[12]
• 1801 – in Klein's dictionary, glossed with Latin finio.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To finish, to bring to an end; to finish speaking;^[6][1] (regional) to carry out; to use up.^[6][1]
2. (reflexive, intransitive) To come to an end; of people, to end up somewhere: a sfârși prin a… “to end up doing…”.^[6][1]
3. (reflexive) To die;^[6][1] (transitive) to kill.^[6][1]
4. (reflexive) To feel faint, to be exhausted.^[6][15]

Word family

• sfârșit
• nesfârșit
• sfârșeală

Related words

• săvârși
• desăvârși

Usage notes

Pe sfârșite means “nearly finished”;^[6] a sfârși cu ceva “to be done with something” and a sfârși cu cineva “to break with someone”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 873
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sfârși
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. sfârși
5. ^ a b c d 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. sfârși
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1011
7. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 588
8. ^ 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. săvârși
9. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 1, 214
10. ^ Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
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 28:8
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. sfârși
13. ^ 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 76:8
14. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 441
15. ^ Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 549