târî

Forms

târî (first-person singular present târăsc, third-person singular present târăște, past participle târât), 4th conjugation^[1][2] The 16th-century psalters have tiri beside tîrî: the Psaltirea Scheiană writes tiri at Psalm 104:32, where Coresi's psalter of 1570 has tîrî.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic трьти (trĭti, “to rub”), also written трѣти (trěti), with the first person тьрѫ (tĭrǫ).^{[1][2][5][4][6]} The Slavonic verb is from Proto-Slavic *terti (“to rub”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub”); it is related to Latin terō (“to rub”).^[1][7][8] Cognates include Serbo-Croatian trti and Czech tříti.^[5][7]

Ciorănescu explains the sense from “to rub the ground” and compares the sound change in pârî.^[5] He records the variants ⟨tîrîi⟩, ⟨tîri⟩ and ⟨întîri⟩;^[5] MDA2 adds regional ⟨tăria⟩ and ⟨târia⟩ and an old ⟨tiri⟩.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Coresi's psalter of 1570, at Psalm 104:32; the Psaltirea Scheiană has tiri in the same verse.^[3] MDA2 dates the word from the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578) and gives its oldest sense as “to destroy”, close to the Slavonic “to crush”.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The old sense “to destroy” went out of use, and the verb came to mean dragging something heavy along the ground, or pulling a person or animal along by force.^[4][2] The reflexive a se târî “to crawl, to creep” is old too: Klein's dictionary of 1801 has târăsc with Latin repo “to creep”.^[9] The Bible of 1688 uses it for creeping things.^[10]

Figurative senses grew from dragging: a-și târî zilele “to drag out one's days”, a târî barca pe uscat “to live in hardship”, a târî pe cineva în noroi “to drag someone through the mud”.^[4][11][2] In the Danube plain, Graur noted, someone has târât piciorul when others imitate what he did;^[12][4] Bulgarian has the same phrase with the same sense.^[12][4]

Timeline

• 1570 – tîrî in Coresi's psalter (Psalm 104:32), the first record.^[3]
• c. 1573–1578 – tiri in the Psaltirea Scheiană, MDA2's first record, “to destroy”.^[4][3]
• c. 1660–1670 – tîrăsc “I drag” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing a Slavonic verb of dragging.^[13]
• 1688 – târăsc “creep” in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 1:26).^[10]
• 1801 – târăsc “to creep” in Klein's dictionary.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To drag something heavy along the ground; to pull a person or animal along by force.^[2][4][1]
2. (transitive) To take someone or something along;^[2] (figurative) to push someone towards something bad.^[2]
3. (reflexive) To crawl on the knees, elbows or belly;^[2][1] (of animals) to creep; to walk slowly and with difficulty.^[2][1]
4. (reflexive) Of something hanging: to trail on the ground.^[2]
5. (obsolete) To destroy.^[4]

Word family

• târâș
• târâtor
• târâtoare
• târâtură
• târâie-brâu

Related words

• târâi

Usage notes

Set phrases include a târî barca pe uscat “to live in hardship” and a târî pe cineva în noroi “to drag someone through the mud”.^[2][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1110
3. ^ a b c d 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
4. ^ 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, 1183
5. ^ a b c d 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. tîrî
6. ^ a b Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
7. ^ a b Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
9. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 455
10. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition)
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 641
12. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1963), Etimologii romînești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. tîrî
13. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional