topseca

Forms

topseca (third-person singular present toapsecă, past participle topsecat), 1st conjugation^[1] The present is toapsec or topsechez.^[2][3] Variants are topsica, topsăca, topzica, topsoca and the older tupseca (present tupsec), which Cipariu records.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin toxicō (“to smear with poison”), a verb made from toxicum (“poison”), as Tiktin, the DLR and MDA2 give it.^[3][2][4][5] Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of toapsec, but he too takes it from Latin (in)toxicāre;^[6][1] Wiktionary gives the same.^[6][1] The REW lists it with Aromanian topseca and Logudorese toskare “to poison”.^[7] intoxica is a later borrowing of the same Latin verb.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, a Latin–Romanian glossary of about 1670.^[3][2] MDA2's first record is Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică (1705), where poisoned air leaves a creature dying: „otrăvit aerul înghițind, de carile lovit și topsicat”.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The verb is old and lived on in folk charms against snakebite: „M-a mușcat, m-a topsicat, la inimă m-a săgetat” “it bit me, it poisoned me, it shot me in the heart”.^[3][2] In Oltenia the reflexive gained the figurative sense “to get upset, to be embittered”.^[2][4][8]

Timeline

• c. 1670 – the Anonymus Caransebesiensis glossary, the first record.^[3][2]
• 1705 – topsicat in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[4][2]
• 1885 – m-a topsicat in the charms of Teodorescu's Poezii populare.^[3][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, obsolete and popular) To poison, envenom.^[4][2][1]
2. (reflexive, regional, figurative) To get upset, to be embittered.^[4][2]

Related words

• toapsec
• intoxica
• Aromanian topseca

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. topseca
3. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. topseca
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1242
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b 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. toapsec
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8818
8. ^ Bulgăr, Gheorghe; Constantinescu-Dobridor, Gheorghe (2002), Dicționar de arhaisme și regionalisme, 2 vols., București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. topseca