vesti

Forms

vesti (third-person singular present vestește, past participle vestit), 4th conjugation^[1] MDA2 records a regional variant vești and, in Maramureș, a third-person present veste.^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian veste + -i, from the noun for “news, tidings”.^[2][3][1][4] The noun is from Old Church Slavonic вѣсть (věstĭ, “news, fame”), from Proto-Slavic *věstь.^[4][3][1] The Slavonic noun belongs with the verb for “to know”, and Ciorănescu ties it to видѣти (viděti, “to see”).^[4][5]

The same Slavonic family gave prevesti “to foretell”, which Ciorănescu takes from Old Church Slavonic прѣдъвѣстити (prědŭvěstiti), and poveste “story”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the first Romanian texts: the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century has vestiră “they declared”.^[6] The Codicele Voronețean has vestit-ai mie “you have told me”.^[7][2][8] The sense was “to make known, to announce”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In church language a bine vesti “to bring good tidings” rendered the Greek and Slavonic verbs for preaching the gospel, as in the Bible of 1688: „bine să vestesc săracilor” “to preach good tidings to the poor”.^[8] The 1688 Bible uses the verb more than fifty times.^[9] From “to announce” came “to proclaim, to preach” a teaching, and “to foretell, to presage”: in folk belief the twitching of the right eye vestea a bine, “boded well”.^[2][8]

The reflexive meant “to become known”, and in the old language “to become famous”, the sense kept in the participle vestit “famous”.^[3][2][4] Tiktin records a Transylvanian use “to announce someone, to have someone announced”: „vestește-mă la Măria Sa Vodă” “announce me to His Highness”.^[8][2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – vestiră in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[6]
• c. 1563–1583 – vestit-ai in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2][7]
• 1570 – vestesc in Coresi's Psalter.^[10]
• 1660 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing verbs for “to announce, to proclaim”.^[11]
• 1688 – a bine vesti “to preach good tidings” in the Bucharest Bible.^[8]
• 1848 – Negulici records a separate vesti “to clothe”.^[2][12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To announce, to make known, to inform: Le-a vestit tuturor că pleacă.^[3][2][1]
2. To foreshadow, to herald: Norii vesteau furtuna.^[3]
3. (of teachings, of God) To preach, to proclaim.^[2]
4. (reflexive) To make one's presence or existence felt.^[3][2]
5. (reflexive, dated) To become famous.^[3]
6. (dated) To consider someone as, to regard as.^[3]

Word family

• vestit
• vestitor

Related words

• veste
• prevesti
• poveste

Usage notes

MDA2 and DLR have a second, rare and obsolete verb vesti “to clothe”, recorded by Negulici in 1848 and taken from Italian vestire and Latin vestiō; it is a separate borrowing, not a sense of this verb.^[2][13][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1465
3. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1195
4. ^ a b c d e 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. veste
5. ^ Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), Ètimologičeskij slovar' russkogo jazyka, transl. and suppl. by O. N. Trubačev, 4 vols., Moskva: Progress
6. ^ 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 63:10
7. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vestí 1
8. ^ 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. vestí
9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 54:19
10. ^ 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 54:19
11. ^ 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. vestesc
12. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. vestire
13. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vestí 2