vinovat

Forms

vinovat m or n (feminine singular vinovată, masculine plural vinovați, feminine/neuter plural vinovate)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic виноватъ (vinovatŭ, “guilty; author, cause”).^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} Scriban glosses the Slavonic word “author” and compares Russian виноватый (vinovátyj).^[7] Ciorănescu lists it under vină, which comes from Old Church Slavonic вина (vina, “accusation”), but as a loan of its own.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The psalter index gives vinovat and vinovată in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[8][9] Tiktin dates the word to about 1530, and MDA2 to the Codicele Voronețean.^[4][5] A text of about 1550 has „O, fericat de cela ce-și iartă vinovatul său” “O blessed is he who forgives the one who wronged him”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Romanian used the word, with a dative, for the author of a deed, as the Slavonic did: Coresi has „eu vinovatul păcatelor” “I, the doer of sins”, and Varlaam writes of a son „vinovat morței părintelui său” “responsible for his father's death”.^[3][5] As a noun it meant an offender or culprit, as in a document of 1587 that names „vinovații” “the guilty”.^[3] From these came the modern adjective “guilty, at fault”, and, of acts, “unlawful, immoral”.^[2][5]

The phrase a se face vinovat de means to commit an offence.^[5][10] The 17th-century lexicons gloss Slavonic виновенъ and повинный with it.^[11] The negative nevinovat “innocent” and the verb învinovăți “to accuse” belong to the family.^[6][4]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – vinovat in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8]
• c. 1530 – Tiktin's first dated record.^[4]
• c. 1550 – vinovatul său “the one who wronged him”.^[3]
• c. 1563-1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[5]
• 1587 – vinovații “the guilty” in a document.^[3]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon glosses Slavonic words for “guilty”.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. guilty, culpable: having done wrong, a fault or an offence, and liable to punishment;^[1] a se face vinovat de “to commit”.^[2][5][1]
2. (of acts and behaviour) Against the law or against morals; not permissible.^[2][5]

Noun

1. A culprit, a person who has committed an offence or a crime.^[5][10]
2. (obsolete, with a dative) The doer or author of something.^[5][3]

Word family

• nevinovat
• vinovăție
• învinovăți

Related words

• vină

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1199
3. ^ 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. vinovat
4. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vinovat
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1484
6. ^ a b c 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. vină
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1407
8. ^ 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 93:1
9. ^ 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 18:8
10. ^ a b Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. vinovat
11. ^ 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. vinovat