strădui

Forms

strădui (third-person singular present străduiește, past participle străduit) 4th conjugation^[1] An old variant stridii occurs in Antim: „mă stridiiam a mă apuca de acest lucru” “I strove to take up this work”.^[2][3] Besides mă străduiesc the present also has mă strădui, especially in the third person se străduie.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic страдати (stradati, “to suffer”), from Proto-Slavic *stradati (“to suffer”).^[1][5][3][2] The Slavonic verb meant “to suffer, languish”, rendering Ancient Greek πάσχω (páskhō) and κακοπαθέω (kakopathéō).^[6] The Romanian verb takes the suffix -ui of verbs borrowed from Slavonic.^[2][5]

Tiktin allows either the Slavonic verb or a Romanian derivative of the noun strădanie “suffering; effort”, itself from Old Church Slavonic страданиѥ (stradanije), and Ciorănescu lists the verb among the derivatives of that noun while comparing the Slavonic verb.^[4][7] Șăineanu gave the source as страдавати (stradavati, “to suffer”).^[8]

The Slavic verb has kept the sense “to suffer” in Bulgarian страдам (stradam) and Russian страдать (stradatʹ);^[9] Old East Slavic also had страдати (stradati, “to strive, to strain for”), close to the Romanian sense.^[9] Wiktionary traces the Proto-Slavic verb to Proto-Indo-European *(s)terh₁- (“to be stiff, hard”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Coresi's Tetraevanghel (1560–1561), with the old intransitive sense “to suffer”: „Un fecior al meu zace slab, foarte cumplit străduiaște” “a son of mine lies sick and suffers terribly”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The intransitive sense “to suffer, be tormented” is now obsolete.^[3][2][4] From the hardship the verb passed to the effort itself: the reflexive a se strădui “to make great efforts, to try hard” is recorded in 1780 („ne-am străduit să arătăm” “we have striven to show”), and is the only sense of the modern language.^[2][5] Klein's dictionary of 1801 glosses it with Latin conor “I try” and satago “I am busy”.^[10] Folk poetry has it in the sense “to toil”: „Străduiește-te, bărbate, Ș-adună multe bucate” “toil, husband, and gather much food”.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1560–1561 – străduiaște “suffers” in Coresi's Tetraevanghel.^[2][3]
• 1661 – the noun strădanie.^[3]
• 1691 – in the Mărgăritare.^[4]
• 1780 – ne-am străduit “we have striven”, the reflexive sense.^[2]
• 1801 – in Klein's dictionary, glossed with Latin conor.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive) To make great efforts to achieve something; to strive, endeavour, take pains.^[5][3]
2. (obsolete, intransitive) To suffer, be tormented.^[3][2]

Word family

• străduință
• străduitor

Related words

• strădanie
• strădănui

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. strădui
3. ^ 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, 1000
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. strădui
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1056
6. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
7. ^ 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. strădanie
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc
9. ^ a b Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
10. ^ a b 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. 449