tăcea

Forms

tăcea (third-person singular present tace, past participle tăcut, third-person subjunctive tacă) 2nd conjugation^[1] Old texts have the past forms tăcum and tăcure, and the imperative is regionally ta.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin taceō (“to be silent”).^[3][2][4][1] The Latin verb continues Proto-Italic *takēō, which de Vaan derives from Proto-Indo-European *tHk-eh₁- (“to be silent”), with cognates in Germanic.^[5]

The verb survives in all four branches of Romanian: Aromanian tac, Megleno-Romanian tac and Istro-Romanian tǫcu.^[3][6] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian takar, Italian tacere, Occitan tazer and French taire.^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb appears in the earliest Romanian psalter, the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, in Psalm 27:1 and in the preterite tăcură (Psalm 106:29–30).^[8] The Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), which MDA2 gives as the first record, has it in the Acts of the Apostles: „tăcum și dzisem voia Domnului să fie” “we fell silent and said, the Lord's will be done” (Acts 21:14).^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

From “to say nothing” the verb came to mean “to stop speaking or crying” and “to give no answer”, and, used of nature and personified things, “to be still, make no sound”.^[10] The transitive use “to leave unsaid, keep secret” is old: Cantemir wrote that the Hungarian historians would not have kept silent about the glory of their kings, „n-ar fi tăcut-o”.^[9][10]

Many folk comparisons describe a complete silence: a tăcea ca peștele “to be as silent as a fish”, ca pământul, ca zidul, mâlc or chitic.^[2][10] Proverbs build on it as well: cine tace merge în pace “who keeps quiet goes in peace”.^[9] The noun tăcere “silence” and the adjective tăcut “quiet” were formed in Romanian.^[3]

Timeline

• early 16th century – tăcea and tăcură in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8]
• c. 1563–1583 – tăcum “we fell silent” in the Codicele Voronețean, MDA2's first record.^[9][2]
• 1570 – tăcui and tăcu in Coresi's psalter.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To be silent, to say nothing, to keep from speaking; of natural things, to be still and make no sound.^[10][2][1]
2. To stop speaking or crying, to fall silent; the imperative taci! means “shut up!”.^[10][1]
3. To give no answer, not to reply.^[10]
4. To keep something secret, to leave it unsaid; to be discreet.^[10][9][1]

Word family

• tăcere
• tăcut
• tăcător

Related words

• taciturn
• Aromanian tac
• Latin taceō

Usage notes

Pe tăcute means “quietly, in secret”, and tace și face is said of someone who acts without many words, or who plots something in secret.^[10] Ia taci! expresses surprise or disbelief.^[10][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1165
3. ^ 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. tăcea
4. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. tăcea
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 287
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8517
8. ^ a b 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 27:1
9. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. tăcea
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1106
11. ^ 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 31:3