surprinde

Forms

surprinde (present surprind, past participle surprins, subjunctive să surprindă) 3rd conjugation^[1] MDA2 records a regional variant suprinde and a popular subjunctive să surprinză.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French surprendre, adapted to the conjugation of the inherited prinde “to catch”.^{[3][2][4][5][1]} Pontbriant already analysed it as the French prefix with Romanian a prinde.^[6] The French verb is sur- with prendre (“to take”);^[7] its Old French form was sorprendre from about 1130.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from Costache Negruzzi in 1837, in the sense “to catch someone unawares”: „ieri, întâlnirea aceea unde i-am surprins” “yesterday, that meeting where I caught them”.^[5][4] The noun surprindere is recorded even earlier, in Heliade's translation of Byron of 1834.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The verb kept the senses of the French: to catch someone in the act, to come upon someone unprepared, and, of storms and events, to overtake.^[4][3] From these came “to astonish” and “to notice, overhear or detect by chance”.^[3][2] Șăineanu also lists “to deceive, abuse”, as in a surprinde buna-credință “to abuse someone's good faith”, which MDA2 marks as dated.^[8][2] It is used as a reflexive too: se surprindea căutând scuze “he caught himself making excuses”, in Rebreanu.^[9]

Timeline

• 1834 – the noun surprindere in Heliade's translation of Byron.^[2]
• 1837 – the verb in Costache Negruzzi.^[5]
• 1844 – the adjective surprinzător “surprising”.^[2]
• 1851 – in Stamati's dictionary of technical and difficult words.^[2]
• 1862 – in Pontbriant's dictionary, “to take in the act; to astonish”.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To catch someone unawares or in the act; to come upon someone unprepared; of storms or events, to overtake.^[3][2]
2. To surprise, astonish: Vestea ne-a surprins pe toți.^[3][2]
3. To notice, overhear or detect suddenly or by chance: a surprinde o privire “to catch a glance”.^[3][2]
4. (military) To take by surprise.^[10]

Word family

• surprindere
• surprinzător

Related words

• prinde
• French surprendre

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1073
3. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1080
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. surprinde
5. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. surprinde
6. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 719
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 631
9. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 320
10. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. surprinde