supune

Forms

supune (third-person singular present supune, past participle supus, third-person subjunctive supună) 3rd conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin suppōnō (“to place under; to subject”), formed with sub- (“under”) on pōnō (“to put, place”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Ciorănescu follows Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu and the REW.^[2][6] The REW groups the Romanian verb with Italian sopporre under the sense “to subject”.^[6] Ciorănescu notes that the other Romance languages chose submittō for this sense;^[2] Romanian has it as sumete.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is the Codicele Voronețean.^[3] Tiktin cites the Psaltirea Scheiană, where Psalm 8 says of God „Toate supus-ai suptu picioarele lui” “thou hast put all things under his feet”, the literal sense “to place under”.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The old language used the verb mostly in its literal sense, “to put under” or “to set beneath”: in the Bucharest Bible of 1688 Moses' helpers put a stone under him.^[7][8] From there it came to mean “to hide”, and in the chronicles “to set troops in ambush”: Ureche writes that the prince „au supus oastea supt Tighinea” “placed his army under Tighina”.^[7][3]

The sense “to bring under one's rule, to subdue” is the one that prevailed;^[7] Tiktin quotes a manuscript of 1773 asking whether one had not read how Alexander „au supus lumea toată” “subdued the whole world”.^[7] The reflexive means “to submit, obey”.^[4][1] Old law texts also used it for forcing a woman into prostitution.^[7][2] In modern Romanian the verb also means “to expose to a treatment” and “to put before someone for a decision”.^[4] In the Banat it means to put a lamb to suck.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – the first record, in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3]
• c. 1573–1578 – supus-ai “thou hast put under” in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[7]
• 1589 – in Coresi's Slavonic–Romanian Psalter (Psalm 9:28).^[9]
• c. 1642–1647 – “to set troops in ambush” in Ureche's chronicle.^[7]
• 1649 – supune in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – more than twenty forms in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• 1773 – “to subdue the world” in a manuscript cited by Tiktin.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To subdue, to bring under one's rule by force of arms; to conquer.^[4][1]
2. Reflexive: to accept someone's rule; to obey, to submit.^[4][1]
3. To make someone accept a thing or a situation; to expose a substance or a material to a treatment: a supune la presiune “to subject to pressure”.^[4]
4. To put something before someone for information or a decision.^[4]
5. (obsolete, regional) To place underneath; to force someone to bend or kneel.^[4][3]

Word family

• supus
• supușenie
• nesupus
• presupune
• supunere

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. supune
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1069
4. ^ 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. 1078
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8469
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. supune
8. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. supune
9. ^ 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 9:28
10. ^ 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. supune
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ex 17:12