trăda

Forms

trăda (third-person singular present trădează, past participle trădat) 1st conjugation^[1] Older texts conjugate it like a da, with a third-person present tradă: Eminescu writes „Ce-n mișcările-i o tradă” “which betrays her in her movements”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a learned 19th-century loan, borrowed from Latin trādō (“to hand over; to betray”), adapted to the conjugation of da.^[4][5][6] Tiktin calls it a reshaping of the Latin verb on the pattern of that verb, in line with preda, and MDA2 compares Italian tradire and French trahir.^[2][3] The Latin verb is formed trāns- + dō (“to give”).^[7] Șăineanu calls it a literary formation, and Graur lists it among the neologisms of that Latin family.^[8][9] Wiktionary calls it inherited, but Ciorănescu dates the word to the 19th century.^[1][4]

The sense “to betray” developed in Latin, where the verb rendered Greek “to hand over” in the Gospel account of Jesus being given up to the guards.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Calimach Code of 1817, in the old legal sense “to hand over, deliver”: the lessor must hand over the leased thing in good condition.^[2] MDA2 dates it from Săulescu's universal history of 1837, where a woman “handed over” to the English in 1431 is burned alive.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, “to hand over to someone's power”, is now obsolete;^[6][3] Asachi still used it of a garrison surrendering.^[6][3] The sense “to betray, to deceive someone's trust” appears by the mid-19th century in Bălcescu and Filimon.^[6] From it came “to be unfaithful in love”, “to give away a secret” and, figuratively, “to reveal, show”, as when a face or the eyes give away what someone feels.^[5][3] DEX also records the use with a faculty as subject: memory or strength “betrays” someone when it fails.^[5]

Timeline

• 1817 – trăda “to hand over” in the Calimach Code.^[2]
• 1837 – in Săulescu's universal history.^[3][6]
• mid-19th century – “to betray” in Bălcescu and Filimon.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To betray: to deceive someone's trust deliberately, siding with the enemy; to be disloyal to someone or something: Și-a trădat prietenii pentru bani.^[5][3][1]
2. To be unfaithful to a partner in love or marriage; also to abandon a line of conduct or an idea.^[5][3]
3. Of a physical or mental faculty: to fail someone: Picioarele au început să-l trădeze.^[5][3]
4. To reveal or give away; reflexive, to give oneself away: Vocea îi trăda emoția.^[5][3][1]
5. (obsolete) To hand over to someone's power.^[3][2]

Word family

• trădător
• trădare

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. trăda
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1262
4. ^ 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. trăda
5. ^ 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. 1141
6. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. trăda
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 660
9. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
10. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier