veghea

Forms

veghea (third-person singular present veghează, past participle vegheat), first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vigilō (“to stay awake, keep watch”), through a syncopated Vulgar Latin *viglō.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin verb is formed on vigil (“awake, alert”).^[1]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian aveglju, Megleno-Romanian viglu and Istro-Romanian veglu.^[2][6][7] Its Romance cognates are Old Italian vegghiare, Occitan velhar, French veiller, Catalan vetllar and Spanish velar.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), at the Second Epistle of Peter (2:9).^[3][8] In the same text Festus orders Paul to be kept in custody: „porânciiu se-l veaghie pânră voiu tremite la Chesariu” “I ordered him to be kept until I send him to Caesar” (Acts 25:21).^[8][4] The old sense was “to keep, to guard”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The old language used the verb for guarding and protecting: Coresi's psalter has „să nu Domnul vegheare cetatea, îndeșert preveghe veghetoriul” “unless the Lord keeps the city, the watchman watches in vain” (Psalm 126:1), and God or the saints veghează someone from harm.^[8][3] The sense “to heed, to keep (a commandment)” is also old.^[8]

In modern Romanian the main sense is that of the Latin verb, to stay awake at night; it was extended to sitting up with a sick person.^[9] The postverbal noun is veghe “wakefulness, vigil”.^[10][2] Supraveghea “to supervise” was modelled on French surveiller;^[2] înveghea (Moldavia) “to take pains” is a derivative, though Pușcariu and the DA trace it to invigilō.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – first record, “to keep, to guard”, in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][8]
• 1625 – guards veghează a pass, in a document.^[4]
• 1688 – vegheați in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To stay awake at night, not to sleep.^[9][1]
2. (transitive) To nurse a sick person by sitting up at the bedside at night.^[9]
3. (transitive) To guard, to keep watch; to watch over an activity, to pay attention to something.^[9][3][1]
4. (regional, of God or the saints) To protect from harm.^[3]

Word family

• veghere
• veghetor
• veghe

Related words

• înveghea
• priveghea
• supraveghea
• Aromanian aveglju
• Latin vigilō

Usage notes

The present is veghez, veghează; the old language also had veghi and the subjunctive să veghi.^[3][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. veghia
3. ^ 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, 1449
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. veghea
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9326
6. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 163
7. ^ 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, 48
8. ^ 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. vegheá
9. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1190
10. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. veghe
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 81:2