spăla

Forms

spăla (third-person singular present spală, past participle spălat), first conjugation^[1] MDA2 records a variant spela.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *experlavō (“to wash out”), formed with ex- on Late Latin perlavō (“to wash thoroughly”), itself from per- and Latin lavō (“to wash”).^[3][1][2] Candrea and Densusianu add that the Latin compound soon became *expellavō, the form DEX and Papahagi give.^[4][5][6] Ciorănescu takes the verb from perlavō with an initial ⟨s-⟩ that may be Latin or expressive, and notes that Densusianu proposed instead a derivative of pellis (“skin”), which he finds unconvincing.^[7] The Latin simple verb comes from Proto-Indo-European *lewh₃- (“to wash”).^[1]

The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian spel or aspel, Megleno-Romanian spel and Istro-Romanian spelu.^[7][8] Outside Romanian the compound is kept only in Albanian, according to Ciorănescu, who cites Philippide.^[7] Wiktionary compares Albanian shpëlaj (“to rinse”), which may be either a borrowing of the Vulgar Latin verb or a derivative of the Albanian verb for washing.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form spăl in Psalm 6 of the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, of the early 16th century.^[9] The Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583) has the verb in Acts 22:16: „Scoală de te boteadză și-ți spală păcatele tale” “rise, be baptized and wash away your sins”.^[10][2]

Semantic evolution

The core sense, cleaning with water, has stayed the same since the 16th century; the reflexive means “to wash oneself”.^[10][5] Figurative uses grew from it: washing away a sin, a fault or an insult, and in idioms a spăla pe cineva pe cap “to scold someone severely” and a-și spăla obrazul “to save face”.^[5][2] Tiktin records a se spăla pe mâini as “to lose something for good”, and Șăineanu as “to decline responsibility”.^[10][11] Water itself became a subject of the verb: rivers and rain wash away the soil, and waves wash a shore; in mining it means washing ore.^[5][12]

In Aromanian spel also means “to run off”, and Papahagi glosses it with the Romanian idiom a spăla putina “to take to one's heels”.^[8] Since 1993 the press has used a spăla bani “to launder money”, a translation of French blanchir de l’argent.^[13] Romanian derivatives include spălător, spălătoreasă “washerwoman”, spălătorie “laundry” and spălăci “to wash badly; to fade”, which Pușcariu took from a Latin derivative and Ciorănescu forms with an expressive suffix.^[7]

Timeline

• early 16th century – spăl in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[9]
• c. 1563–1583 – spală “wash away” in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2][10]
• 1649 – spăl glosses a Slavonic verb for rinsing in Mardarie's lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – over sixty occurrences in the Bucharest Bible.^[15]
• 1993 – a spăla bani “to launder money” in the press.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wash: to clean with water, soap or detergent; reflexive, to wash oneself.^[5][2]
2. (figurative) To wipe out a fault, a wrong or an insult.^[5]
3. Of rain or rivers, to erode the ground and carry it off; of waters, to wash against a shore.^[5][12]
4. (mining) To separate the components of an ore in a stream of water.^[5]

Word family

• spălat
• nespălat
• spălător
• spălătorie
• spălătură
• spălăci
• spălăcitură
• spălare

Related words

• Aromanian aspel
• Latin lavō

Usage notes

Candrea and Densusianu explain the first-person present spăl as remade after the infinitive and the other end-stressed forms.^[4] Common expressions are a spăla pe cineva pe cap “to give someone a dressing-down” and a-și spăla obrazul “to redeem oneself”.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 944
3. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3044
4. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1037
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 168
7. ^ 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. spăla
8. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 966
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 6:6
10. ^ 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. spăla
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 606
12. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. spăla
13. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. spăla
14. ^ 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. spăl
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 49:11