stăpâni

Forms

stăpâni (present stăpânesc, third-person singular stăpânește, past participle stăpânit), 4th conjugation.^[1][2] Dictionaries of the second half of the 20th century spell it stăpîni, with î.^[3][4] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written стэпыни.^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian stăpân (“master, owner”) + -i, a verb made in Romanian on the noun.^[2][5][6][1]

The noun itself is of uncertain origin.^[5] Most dictionaries derive it from Old Church Slavonic стопанъ (stopanŭ), with Bulgarian стопанин (stopanin) and Albanian stopan (“head shepherd”) beside it, and MDA2 compares the Slavonic word.^[5][7] Ciorănescu objects that the Slavic words stand alone in Slavic, with no family there, and that their resemblance to jupân points rather to a native word; he lists the other proposals: Albanian shtëpi (“house”), Vulgar Latin *hospitanus, *stipanus, the name of King Stephen of Hungary, and Ancient Greek στέφανος (stéphanos).^[5] Wiktionary finds the Albanian word for “house” the likelier source.^[1]

The noun survives as Megleno-Romanian stăpǫn.^[5] The verb Aromanian stãpuescu (“to stop, restrain oneself”) belongs to the same root, though the noun it was made from has been lost there;^[1][8] Papahagi derives it instead from Albanian stepem (“to draw back”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1592 in the DIR collection, with the sense “to rule, to own”.^[6] MDA2 takes its first example from the Învățăturile of Neagoe Basarab, which it cites in the edition of 1843.^[10] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it at the creation of the world: „Împleți pământul și stăpâniți pre dânsul” “fill the earth and rule over it”.^[11][6]

Semantic evolution

The old senses are those of the noun: to own land, villages and serfs, and to rule a country or a people.^[6][4] An 18th-century document quoted by Tiktin says that the minor boyars and the monasteries should hold their estates and their serfs, să-și stăpânească ocinile, moșiile și vecinii.^[6] Used without an object it meant “to reign”, as of the princes who had ruled the two countries.^[6] In the old language the person or thing ruled could stand in the dative, as in Dosoftei.^[6]

From ruling people the verb passed to passions and thoughts that rule a person: the DLR quotes 19th- and 20th-century writers on a passion or a single thought that stăpânește someone.^[4] A calm or a silence could also stăpâni a house, and a mountain the gorges below it.^[6] The reflexive a se stăpâni “to control oneself” is recorded in folk poetry.^[6] In the 20th century the verb also came to mean “to know a field or a language thoroughly”.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1592 – the first record, in a document cited by Tiktin.^[6]
• 1688 – stăpâniți “rule over” in the Bucharest Bible, beside more than 30 other forms of the verb.^[11]
• 1843 – the edition of the Învățăturile of Neagoe Basarab that MDA2 cites for its first example.^[10]
• 1862 – Pontbriant glosses it “to possess; to reign; to master, tame”.^[12]
• 1955–1957 – the DLRLC records the sense “to know a field thoroughly”.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To own, to have as one's property: Familia stăpânește pământul de trei generații.^[2][10]
2. (transitive) To master a field, a skill or a doctrine;^[2] a stăpâni o limbă “to speak a language fluently and correctly”.^[2]
3. (reflexive, figurative) To control oneself, to hold back a feeling or an impulse;^[2] (transitive) to suppress a feeling, to restrain someone.^[2]
4. (intransitive) To rule, to reign over a country, to govern.^[2][10]
5. (transitive, figurative) Of thoughts or feelings: to dominate someone, to hold someone under their sway.^[2]

Word family

• stăpânire
• stăpânitor
• nestăpânit

Related words

• stăpân
• Aromanian stãpuescu

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1048
3. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 223
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. stăpîni
5. ^ 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. stăpîn
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. stăpâni
7. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 976
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 967
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 973
10. ^ 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, 977
11. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 9:1
12. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 698