sparge

Forms

sparge (first-person singular present sparg, third-person singular present sparge, past participle spart, third-person subjunctive spargă), 3rd conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin spargō (“to scatter, to strew”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu cites Cihac, Șăineanu, Pușcariu and the REW for it.^[2][6] De Vaan derives the Latin verb from Proto-Indo-European *sper- (“to strew”) extended with a velar, and rejects the older comparison with words for crackling.^[7][1]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian aspargu, Megleno-Romanian sparg and Istro-Romanian spǫrg.^[2][8][1] The Romance cognates are Italian spargere, Occitan esparzer, Catalan espargir, Portuguese espargir and Spanish esparcir, which kept the Latin sense “to scatter”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century: sparseră in Psalms 10:3 and 118:125.^[9] Tiktin cites the Codicele Voronețean of the same century (Acts 19:27), and MDA2 the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

From Latin “to scatter” Romanian kept the sense of breaking up a whole: dispersing a crowd, routing an army, ending a gathering.^[2][3][4] Its main modern sense, “to break into pieces, to shatter”, is already in the old texts, which also use it for pulling down a building (Sparge-voi jitnița mea “I will pull down my barn”, Luke 12:18 in Coresi) and for tearing clothes.^[5]

Later senses are forcing a door or lock, and so burgling, piercing or killing, an abscess bursting, and a voice cracking.^[4] A sparge norma “to exceed the work quota” and a sparge frontul “to break through the front” belong to the 20th-century language, and recent slang uses the verb for hacking a computer and for blowing money.^[4][1] The proverb N-a spart Dumnezeu două case says that a married couple suit each other.^[5]

Timeline

• early 16th century – sparseră in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[9]
• 16th century – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[5]
• 1551 – sparse in the Voroneț psalter.^[10]
• 1570 – spărseși in Coresi's psalter.^[11]
• 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3]
• 1654 – a manuscript tells how a prince pulled down the metropolitan church of Argeș.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To break into pieces, to shatter, also reflexive; to crack or burst.^[4][3][1]
2. To wound someone in the head.^[4] Also, to split logs.^[4] (reflexive, figurative, of the voice) To become hoarse.^[4]
3. To break the shell of something to get at its contents.^[4] (of an abscess) To burst open.^[4][2]
4. To destroy, to ruin: a sparge norma “to exceed the quota”, a sparge frontul “to break through the front”.^[4]
5. To force a door or a lock, and so to burgle.^[4][1]
6. To pierce, to stab.^[4] (reflexive, familiar) To die.^[4] (reflexive, figurative) To shout at the top of one's voice.^[4]
7. (reflexive, of gatherings) To break up, to end.^[4] (transitive) To sow discord: a sparge cuiva casa “to break up someone's marriage”.^[4]
8. (obsolete) To scatter or rout an army.^[4][2]
9. (slang) To hack a computer system.^[1] Also, to squander money.^[1]

Word family

• spărgăcios
• spărgător
• spărgălui
• spargere
• spărtură
• spart

Related words

• Aromanian aspargu
• Latin spargō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. sparge
3. ^ 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, 941
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1036
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sparge
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8120
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 271
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 10:3
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 77:50
11. ^ 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 73:16