zdrobi

Forms

zdrobi (present zdrobesc, third-person singular zdrobește, past participle zdrobit), 4th conjugation^[1][2] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 also has the form zrobi, beside the usual zdrobi.^[3][4] Damé's dictionary enters the verb under the spelling sdrobi.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic съдробити (sŭdrobiti, “to crumble, break up”).^[2][6][7][1] MDA2 and the DLR give the source as здробити (zdrobiti), a form that developed from it.^[8][9] The SJS records the Slavonic verb only in the Supraśl Codex and in a gloss, where it means “to crumble (bread)”.^[10] It is a prefixed verb of дробити (drobiti, “to break into pieces”).^[10] That verb continues Proto-Slavic *drobiti (“to crumble, crush”).^[11] Wiktionary traces it further to Proto-Indo-European *dʰreb- (“to grind, crush”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, copied in the early 16th century: „Arcul frânge și-l zdrobeaște” “he breaks the bow and shatters it”.^[9][8] The same psalter has the infinitive zdrobi, the participle zdrobit and the past zdrobiși “you crushed”.^[12][13][14] The sense was physical, “to break to pieces”, and figurative uses for defeating enemies appear in the same psalms.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The verb is frequent in the old religious texts: the Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses zdrobi alone more than sixty times.^[15] The Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the 17th century use zdrobesc to translate Slavonic verbs for breaking.^[16] Klein's dictionary of 1801 renders it with Latin terō, conterō and contundō.^[17]

From “break to pieces” the verb came to mean “destroy, annihilate”.^[2] It also means “grieve deeply”, as a heart broken by bad news.^[2][18] MDA2 records an old phrase a zdrobi lanțurile “to break the chains”, that is, to free from bondage.^[8] It also records an old and popular sense “to break open (a lock)”.^[8] The reflexive is used regionally of people who toil or fret.^[2][6] Tiktin records an intransitive use “to speak a language badly”, as an emperor who mangles Romanian in one of Reteganul's tales.^[7] In Moldovan folklore Stati records the senses “to make, forge” and “to give birth”.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – zdrobeaște, zdrobi and zdrobit in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[9][8][12]
• 1589 – zdrobesc in a psalter printed in 1589.^[20]
• 1660 – zdrobesc and zdrobit in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[16]
• 1688 – zdrobi, zdrobit and zrobi in the Bucharest Bible.^[15][3]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary renders it with Latin “tero, contero, contundo”.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To crush, to shatter: to break into small pieces by striking or pressing: A zdrobit nucile cu ciocanul.^[2][8]
2. (transitive) To destroy, to annihilate (nimici), to defeat utterly.^[2][21]
3. (transitive, figurative) To grieve deeply, to break someone's heart.^[2][18]
4. (reflexive) To fall apart, to perish.^[2]
5. (reflexive, regional, figurative) Of people: to strive with all one's strength, to fret, to be in turmoil.^[2][6]

Word family

• zdrobire
• zdrobitor
• zdrobitură

Related words

• sfărâma

References

1. ^ a b c 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. 1221
3. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Leviticus 2:6
4. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1585
5. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État
6. ^ a b c Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 953
7. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. zdrobi
8. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1558
9. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. zdrobi
10. ^ a b Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
11. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 118
12. ^ 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 58:12
13. ^ 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 50:18
14. ^ 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 73:14
15. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Exodus 21:27
16. ^ 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. zdrobesc
17. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 467
18. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 740
19. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. 344
20. ^ 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 17:46
21. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. zdrobi