transpira

Forms

transpira (third-person singular present transpiră, past participle transpirat, third-person subjunctive transpire) 1st conjugation^[1] The present was once also transpirez, and a corrupt regional form strampira is recorded in Udrescu's glossary.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French transpirer, one of the French neologisms of the 19th century.^{[4][3][2][5][1]} The French verb, recorded from 1503, is from Medieval Latin trānspīrō,^[6] formed from trāns- (“across”) and spīrō (“to breathe”) on the model of exspīrō and aspīrō.^[6][1] DN also points to the Latin elements.^[7] Pontbriant gave the Latin verb as its source in 1862.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Carol Munde's Descriere of the cold-water cure, translated from German and published in 1840, in the sense “to sweat”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense “to sweat” came first; an impersonal reflexive se transpiră “one sweats” is also recorded.^[2] Pontbriant in 1862 already gives the figurative sense “to begin to be known”,^[8] which French had used since 1738.^[6] In the later 19th century Hasdeu, Maiorescu and Gherea used it for a quality or feeling that shows through a text.^[2] The botanical sense, of plants giving off water vapour, appears in the 20th-century dictionaries.^[2] In familiar speech it now means that news or a secret leaks out, a use recorded by the slang dictionaries too.^[4][9]

Timeline

• 1840 – transpira “to sweat” in Munde's translated book on the cold-water cure.^[3]
• 1862 – Pontbriant gives the figurative sense “to begin to be known”.^[8]
• 1870 – recorded in Costinescu's dictionary.^[2]
• 1954 – a transpirat “it has leaked out” of news, quoted by the DLR.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sweat, perspire: to give off sweat through the pores of the skin; asuda, năduși.^[4][1]
2. (of plants) To give off water as vapour; to transpire.^[4][7]
3. (figurative, familiar) To come to the surface, to show through;^[4][10] (of news, a rumour, a secret) to leak out, become known.^[4][10]

Related words

• French transpirer

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. transpira
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1257
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. 1138
5. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria
6. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. transpirer
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
8. ^ a b c Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 748
9. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu
10. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional