viperă

Forms

viperă f (plural vipere)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vīpera (“viper”) in DEX, MDA2 and Pușcariu's dictionary.^[2][3][4][1] Tiktin doubts that it is inherited, and Ciorănescu notes that it appears only in the 17th century and is missing from the REW.^[5][6] South of the Danube Aromanian vipirã survives mainly in the derivative nvipiredz (“to be startled; to become venomous”), and there is Istro-Romanian viperę, which Popovici compares with Italian.^[4][7][8] Romance cognates include Sardinian pibera and Spanish víbora.^[6][9]

The Latin word has two explanations.^[10][11] The traditional one, going back to Pliny, takes it from vīvus (“alive”) and pariō (“to give birth”), for a snake that bears live young.^[10][1] De Vaan rejects this on semantic and formal grounds.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the New Testament of Bălgrad of 1648, in the story of Paul on Malta: „o vipere, ieșind den căldură, năvăli spre mâna lui” “a viper, coming out of the heat, fastened on his hand” (Acts 28:3).^[12][3][5]

Semantic evolution

The old texts have the form vipere.^[5][12] The figurative sense of a wicked, treacherous person appears in pui de viperă “brood of vipers” and in Scriban's limbă de viperă “slanderous tongue”.^[2][13] In zoology the word names several species: the common viper, the horned viper (viperă-cu-corn) and the steppe viper (viperă-de-stepă).^[3] Folk speech prefers năpârcă for the snake.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1648 – vipere in the New Testament of Bălgrad (Acts 28:3).^[12][3]
• 1649 – the word in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1673 – vipera in Dosoftei's verse Psalter (Psalm 57).^[5]
• 1688 – vipere in the Bucharest Bible (Acts 28:3).^[14]
• 1705 – viperii in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A viper, a small, very venomous snake with a dark V-shaped mark on its head and a black zigzag stripe along its back (Vipera berus); also called năpârcă.^[2][1]
2. Viperă-cu-corn: the horned viper (Vipera ammodytes), with a scaly horn above its snout.^[2][3]
3. (figurative) A wicked, treacherous person.^[2][15]

Related words

• Aromanian vipirã

Usage notes

A tresări ca mușcat de viperă means “to start violently, as if bitten by a viper”.^[3][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1200
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, 1487
4. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 178
5. ^ 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. viperă
6. ^ a b 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. viperă
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1112
8. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 164
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9358
10. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. viperă
13. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1408
14. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Acts 28:3
15. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. viperă
16. ^ Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. viperă