visa

Forms

visa (third-person singular present visează, past participle visat), first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is usually explained as formed from Romanian vis + -a, a verb made on the noun for “dream”.^[2][3][4][1] The noun is inherited from Latin vīsum (“something seen, a vision”), the neuter participle of videō (“to see”).^[5][6] The REW lists the verb as a Romanian derivative of the noun.^[7]

Ciorănescu takes the verb itself from Latin: a rare Late Latin vīsō is attested, and Sardinian bizare (“to dream”) continues it in Logudorese Sardinian.^[5][1][7] Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[1] The verb has counterparts in all four branches: Aromanian nvisedz, Megleno-Romanian visés and Istro-Romanian misǫ.^[5] Ungureanu compares the Sardinian forms of Campidano and Logudoro, among them ⟨visare⟩ and ⟨bizai⟩.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Palia de la Orăștie (1581–1582), at Genesis 41:5, with the sense “to dream”.^[4][3] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses it often in the story of Joseph's dreams: visând “dreaming” and visat “dreamt”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is to have a dream, or to see someone or something in a dream; the reflexive a se visa is to see oneself in a dream, and so to imagine oneself somewhere or as something.^[2][4] From the dream the verb moved to waking states: to let one's thoughts wander, to imagine, and figuratively to long for something.^[2][3] Șăineanu also gives “to be delirious” and “to talk extravagantly”, and MDA2 keeps the delirium sense as rare.^[11][3]

Several phrases grew around it: a visa deștept “to dream awake, to have hallucinations”, a visa cai verzi pe pereți “to dream of green horses on the walls”, that is to indulge in fantasies, and the regional a visa codri verzi “to be very hungry”.^[12][3] Ciorănescu notes that the verb is in general use across the Romanian territory, as the linguistic atlas shows.^[5]

Timeline

• 1581–1582 – visa “to dream” in the Palia de la Orăștie (Genesis 41:5), the first record.^[4][3]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses visând, visat and visează in Genesis and Isaiah.^[9][13]
• 1801 – listed in Klein's dictionary.^[14]
• 1862 – Pontbriant records a homonymous visa “to put a visa on”, from French.^[15]
• 1893–1895 – Damé glosses it “to see in a dream” and records a visa deștept “to dream awake”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To dream: to have a dream in one's sleep, or to see someone or something in a dream: Am visat-o pe bunica azi-noapte. “I dreamt of my grandmother last night.”^[2][3][1]
2. (reflexive) To see oneself in a dream;^[2] unde te visezi? “where do you think you are?”^[2]
3. (intransitive) To daydream: to let one's thoughts and imagination run free; to imagine, to muse.^[2][17]
4. (figurative) To cross one's mind;^[2] când nici nu visezi “when you least expect it”.^[2]
5. (figurative) To long for something, to desire it ardently.^[2][3]

Word family

• visare
• visător

Related words

• vis
• Aromanian nvisedz
• Latin vīsum

Usage notes

The present takes the suffix -ez: visez, visează;^[3] MDA2 also notes a very rare present visă.^[3] The 19th-century visa “to put a visa on (a passport)” is a separate borrowing from French, recorded by Pontbriant.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1201
3. ^ 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, 1490
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. visa
5. ^ a b c d 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. vis
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9383
8. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 368
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 37:5
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 37:6
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 698
12. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 670
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Isaia 29:7
14. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. visa
15. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 783
16. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. visa
17. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. visa