surpriză

Forms

surpriză f (plural surprize)^[1] MDA2 records a rare variant surprisă.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French surprise, as every dictionary says.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The French noun is the feminine of surpris, past participle of surprendre (“to surprise”).^[1]

Graur places it in the family of Latin prehendō (“to seize”), with prinde and the French loans priză and prizonier.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and the DLR date the first record to 1833, in a text whose writer asks not to be given surprises, having seen many unpleasant endings come of them.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In its first records the word is a pleasant thing prepared for someone without warning, and so a present: the DLR's 19th-century quotations speak of a surprise prepared for someone's return.^[3][2] DEX puts first the act of catching someone unawares, then anything unexpected, and the pleasant surprise or gift as a subsense.^[4] It also names the feeling itself, astonishment.^[5][7] Recent Romanian uses it after another noun: petrecere-surpriză “surprise party”, control-surpriză “surprise inspection”.^[8]

Timeline

• 1833 – first record, in the sense “surprise prepared for someone”.^[2][3]
• 1929 – Șăineanu glosses it with the native noun surprindere.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Catching someone off guard;^[4][2] prin surpriză “by surprise”.^[4][2]
2. Anything unexpected: o călătorie fără surprize “a journey without surprises”.^[4][10]
3. A pleasant thing done for someone without warning; a present, gift.^[4][2]
4. astonishment, the feeling of being surprised.^[2][5]

Related words

• surprinde
• prinde

Usage notes

A avea o surpriză means to be faced with something one did not expect, pleasant or not.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. surpriză
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
6. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 78
7. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 321
8. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 631
10. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional