vărsa

Forms

vărsa (third-person singular present varsă, past participle vărsat, third-person subjunctive verse) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin versō (“to turn often, overturn”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The Latin verb is the frequentative of vertō (“to turn”).^[1][6] It survives in Aromanian versu.^[2][7][8] The Romance cognates are Italian versare, French verser, Occitan versar, Catalan vessar and Portuguese vessar.^[2][5] The REW notes that the word means “to pour in” everywhere, but “to plough” in Portuguese.^[5]

Ciorănescu calls the shift of meaning, from “to overturn” to “to pour out”, already Romance and natural.^[2] He compares Spanish revesar (“to vomit”).^[2] The sense “to pay in money” is a calque of French verser, and vărsământ “payment” follows versement.^[2]

revărsa “to overflow” is a Romanian formation according to Ciorănescu, because an intervocalic /v/ of reversō would have been lost.^[2] Pușcariu and the REW take it straight from that Latin verb.^[2][9] The noun vărsat “pox” probably comes from the idea of scattering.^[2] Ciorănescu compares Bulgarian сипаница (sipanica, “smallpox”), formed on a Bulgarian verb for “to pour”.^[2][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500–1520), MDA2's first record, with the forms vărsa and vărsară at Psalms 72:2 and 78:3.^[3][11] Tiktin also cites a 16th-century record from the Codicele Voronețean, at Acts 22:20.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense is “to pour out, spill”.^[12][4] From it come “to shed tears” and “to shed blood”, that is, to kill.^[4][12] Further senses are “to vomit” and, for rivers, “to flow into”.^[12] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has God pouring out his wrath: „Am vărsat mânia mea preste dânșii” “I poured out my wrath upon them”.^[12]

The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss vărsat with Slavonic words for a cast image.^[13] “To cast” a bell was still said in 1816; the usual verb for it is now turna.^[12] The financial sense “to pay in” follows French.^[2] The idiom plouă de varsă means “it is pouring with rain”.^[12] A regional variant of the present is varsează.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – vărsa and vărsară in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[11][3]
• c. 1563-1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[12]
• 1649 – vărsat in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1688 – “to pour out (wrath)” in the Bucharest Bible (Ezekiel 36:18).^[12]
• 1816 – “to cast” a bell, in an inscription.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pour out or spill a liquid or loose substance from a container: A vărsat cafeaua pe masă.^[4][1]
2. (reflexive, of rivers) To flow into another river or the sea: Oltul se varsă în Dunăre.^[4][12]
3. (popular) To vomit.^[4][1]
4. To shed or spread light or warmth.^[4]
5. To pay a sum of money into an account.^[14][2]
6. (dated) To assign a soldier to a unit.^[14]

Word family

• vărsat
• vărsător
• vărsătură
• revărsa
• vărsare
• vărsământ

Related words

• Aromanian versu
• Latin versō

Usage notes

Set phrases: a vărsa lacrimi “to weep”, a vărsa sânge “to kill”, a-și vărsa sângele “to give one's life”.^[4] A-și vărsa focul (or amarul) means “to pour out one's grief”.^[4]

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 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. vărsa
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, 1426
4. ^ 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. 1186
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9242
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. versō
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1107
8. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 186
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7276
10. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 6, 679
11. ^ 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 78:3
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vărsa
13. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. vărsat
14. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. vărsa