strica

Forms

strica (third-person singular present strică, past participle stricat, third-person subjunctive strice), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin extrīcō (“to disentangle, set free”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin verb is formed from ex- and trīcae (“hindrances, tricks”).^[6][1] Ciorănescu explains the Romanian senses from “to undo what resists”.^[2] Tiktin gives the etymon as apparent.^[7] Graur assumes an intermediate sense “to take apart”.^[8]

It survives south of the Danube: Megleno-Romanian stricari and Aromanian stric.^[2][1] Ciorănescu compares Spanish estregar (“to scrub”) and the old Italian verbs stricare and strigare “to undo”.^[2][1] Tiktin compares Italian distrigare (“to disentangle”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a Gospel text of 1551–1553, at Matthew 6:19, where moth and rust spoil treasure on earth.^[7] Coresi's psalter of 1589 has strica (Psalm 93:5).^[9]

Semantic evolution

Tiktin sees the old sense in a strica ouă, nuci “to crack eggs, nuts”.^[7] The verb covers every kind of spoiling: breaking an object, cracking a shell, forcing a lock, rotting food, souring the weather.^[3][7] In old texts and folk poetry it also meant “to destroy a town”, “to kill” and “to deflower”: an old law speaks of a priest who strică curăția of a girl, and a folk song asks Mulți tătari tu mi-ai stricat?^[7][10] The Maramureș glossary still records “to kill, cut to pieces”.^[11] Other senses grew from it: breaking a peace or an agreement, breaking off a friendship (a strica sita cu cineva), corrupting someone morally and, reflexively, going to the bad.^[7][3][12] A record of 1693 has a strong wind that strică multe corăbii “wrecks many ships”.^[5]

Timeline

• 1551–1553 – at Matthew 6:19, Tiktin's first record.^[7]
• 1589 – strica in Coresi's psalter.^[9]
• 1649 – stric and stricat in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – about 50 occurrences of strica in the Bucharest Bible.^[14]
• 1693 – of a wind wrecking ships.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spoil, damage, break: Copilul a stricat jucăria. Reflexive: to break down, and of the weather, to turn bad.^[3][1]
2. (popular) To crack open a shell, or to break open a door or lock.^[3]
3. Reflexive, of food: to go bad, rot, and of the air, to become foul.^[3]
4. To do harm, and intransitively to be harmful or out of place: Nu strică să întrebi.^[3]
5. To upset or thwart a plan or an action.^[3]
6. To corrupt someone, and reflexively to go to the bad.^[3][12]
7. To do something wrongly.^[3]
8. To pull down or destroy a building or a settlement, and (old) to kill.^[3]
9. To break off a friendship or love affair, to fall out with someone.^[3]
10. To waste, to use up to no purpose.^[3]

Word family

• stricăcios
• stricăciune
• stricător
• stricat

Related words

• intrigă
• Latin extrīcō

Usage notes

Nu strică or n-ar strica să… means “there's no harm in…”.^[3] A se strica de râs is “to split one's sides laughing”, and a se strica căruța la mijlocul drumului “to run into trouble halfway”.^[3][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. strica
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1059
4. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1015
5. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. strica
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. strica
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. s.v. intrigă
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 93:5
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 621
11. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1925), Graiul și folklorul Maramureșului, București: Cultura Națională, p. 233
12. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. strica
13. ^ 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. stric
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 6:13