sui

Forms

sui (third-person singular present suie, past participle suit, third-person subjunctive suie), fourth conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin subeō (“to go under; to go up, approach”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The Latin verb is formed from sub- (“under”) and eō (“to go”).^[1][6]

The verb survives in Megleno-Romanian as sui.^[2][7] Its Romance cognates include Spanish subir and Portuguese subir.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, with sui in Psalms 17 and 23.^[3][8] Coresi's psalter has „să suire în ceriu, tu ești aciia; să deștinsere în iad, aciia ești” “if I go up into heaven, thou art there; if I go down into hell, thou art there” (Psalm 138:8).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The verb was both intransitive, “to go up”, and transitive, “to bring up, to raise”: the Bucharest Bible of 1688 says „Domnul omoară și învie, pogoară în iad și suie” “the Lord kills and makes alive, brings down to hell and brings up” (1 Samuel 2:6).^[4] With a hill or a horse as object it means climbing the hill or mounting the horse, as in the folk line Valea sui, dealul cobor.^[4]

Figurative senses cover rising in rank and rising prices or numbers.^[9][3] Expressions include a se sui pe tron “to ascend the throne” and a i se sui la cap “to become conceited”.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – sui in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3][8]
• c. 1551-1558 – sui in the Psaltirea de la Voroneț.^[10]
• 1570 – suind in Coresi's psalter.^[11]
• c. 1660 – the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons.^[12]
• 1688 – suie “brings up” in the Bucharest Bible (1 Samuel 2:6).^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go up, to climb toward a higher place; transitive, to climb a slope.^[9][3][1]
2. (figurative) To advance, to rise.^[9]
3. To get onto something high; to mount a horse, a cart or a tree.^[9][1]
4. (reflexive) To rise into the air.^[9]
5. (reflexive, of numbers, prices, sums) To increase; transitive, to raise.^[9]

Word family

• suiș
• suit
• suitor

Related words

• subit
• Megleno-Romanian sui

Usage notes

The commoner synonym is urca.^[9] A Banat word sui, the name of several diseases, is a separate loan from Hungarian süly.^[13] The combining form sui- “pig” in scientific terms comes from French and Latin.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. sui
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, 1050
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. sui
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8364
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 280
8. ^ 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 17:10
9. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1071
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 131:3
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 105:8
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. sui
13. ^ Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 750
14. ^ Andrei, Nicolae (1987), Dicționar etimologic de termeni științifici: elemente de compunere greco-latine, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. s.v. sui