sprijini

Forms

sprijini (third-person singular present sprijină, past participle sprijinit, third-person subjunctive sprijine) 4th conjugation^[1] The present is sprijin, formerly sprijinesc.^[2][3] Old and regional variants include sprejeni, sprijeni, sprejăni, sprijoni and sprijuni.^[2][4] A 17th-century law text quoted by Tiktin has sprijăni “to hold back”: „Cela ce va sprijăni pre doi vrăjmași pentru să-i împarță” “he who holds back two enemies to separate them”.^[5]

Etymology

DEX, MDA2, DLR and Wiktionary derive it from Romanian sprijin + -i.^[6][2][7][1] The noun, “support”, is in turn traced to Old Church Slavonic съпрѧженъ (sŭpręženŭ), the past participle of a verb meaning “to join, to harness”.^[6][2][1][8] The verb is recorded from the early 16th century, the noun only from 1800.^[2][9]

Ciorănescu considers the origin unknown.^[4] He finds the link with the Slavonic verb and its participle, proposed by Candrea, uncertain, Cihac's derivation from opri even less likely, and likewise Pușcariu's from prăjină “pole”; the suffix ⟨-ni⟩ usually marks expressive formations.^[4] His own suggestion is spre jur “around”, through a verb ⟨*sprejuri⟩ “to surround”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, under the spelling sprejeni (Psalms 47 and 88).^[2][10][5]

Semantic evolution

The concrete sense “to prop up, to hold so that it does not fall” and the figurative “to help, to protect” are both old.^[7][5] Old texts also used the verb for “to hold back, to stop”: Dosoftei writes of the saint's body wrapped in cloths to stop the blood, „de sprejiniră sângele”, and Damé still records a sprijini sângele “to stop the bleeding”.^[5][11] The sense “to withstand an attack” is now old and regional.^[6] Cantemir used it for keeping alive: an animal with nothing cu ce viața să-și sprijinească “to sustain its life with”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – sprejeni in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10][2]
• 1642–1647 – in Grigore Ureche's chronicle (known from later copies).^[5][7]
• 1673 – a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – sprijinind in the Bucharest Bible.^[13]
• 1800 – the noun sprijin, in Budai-Deleanu.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, reflexive) To support, to prop up, to lean so as not to fall: se sprijini de perete “to lean against the wall”.^[6][2]
2. (figurative) To base on, to rest on: argumentul se sprijină pe date “the argument rests on data”.^[6]
3. (figurative) To help, to back, to protect; to give one's support to something.^[6][1]
4. (dated, regional) To withstand an attack, to resist.^[6][4]

Word family

• sprijineală
• sprijinitor

Related words

• sprijin

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 963
3. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 202
4. ^ a b c d e 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. sprijini
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. sprijini
6. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1043
7. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sprijini
8. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sprijin
9. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sprijin
10. ^ 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 47:3
11. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. sprijini
12. ^ 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. sprijini
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 3 Kgs 11:34