surprindere

Forms

surprindere f (plural surprinderi)^[1] MDA2 records an old variant suprindere, without the first r.^[2]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of surprinde, formed from Romanian surprinde + -re, and names the act of surprising or being surprised.^[2][3][1] The verb itself was borrowed from surprendre and reshaped after the native verb prinde “to catch”.^[2][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and the DLR give the first record from Ion Heliade Rădulescu's translations from Byron (1834), where someone is ashamed of a flight caused „din surprindere și frică” “by surprise and fear”.^[2][6] The noun is thus recorded a few years before the verb, which Tiktin first finds in Costache Negruzzi in 1837.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The bilingual dictionaries of the 19th century give it the range of French surprise: the act of catching someone in the act and the astonishment it causes;^[7][8] Costinescu (1870) adds “deception, error”.^[7][8] Șăineanu (1929) still lists a third sense, “a present given unexpectedly”, which today belongs to surpriză.^[9] The DLR and MDA2 mark the senses in which surprindere stood for surpriză as obsolete.^[2][6]

The military phrase atac prin surprindere “surprise attack” runs through the DLR's quotations from Rebreanu, Camil Petrescu and Oțetea, and prin surprindere “unexpectedly” is the commonest use of the word today.^[6][3] A newer sense, the catching or noticing of a passing aspect of something, is recorded by the DLRLC from the 1950s.^[10]

Timeline

• 1834 – first record, in Heliade Rădulescu's translations from Byron.^[2][6]
• 1837 – the verb surprinde in Costache Negruzzi.^[5]
• 1862 – Pontbriant glosses it with French surprise, both the catching and the astonishment.^[7]
• 1885 – prin surprindere “by surprise” in a quotation of the DLR.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of surprising someone or of being surprised; catching someone unawares or in the act.^[3][2]
2. prin surprindere: unexpectedly, without warning;^[3][2] a lua pe cineva prin surprindere “to take someone by surprise”, not to give them time to collect themselves.^[3][2]
3. A feeling of astonishment caused by something unforeseen; surpriză, uimire.^[3][2]
4. The noticing or capturing of a passing aspect of something: surprinderea unui moment.^[3][11]

Related words

• surpriză
• 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 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 g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1080
4. ^ 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 c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. surprindere
7. ^ a b c Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 719
8. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 631
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 320
11. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. surprindere