empenta

From a substantivation of the feminine of Old Catalan empent (the original past participle of empènyer), from Vulgar Latin *impinctus, as an alternative past participle of Latin impingō (instead of the Classical participle impāctus). The Vulgar Latin form would have ordinarily yielded a Catalan *empint, but analogy with other forms of the verb resulted in empent. Compare Italian impinta.

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /əmˈpən.tə/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /əmˈpɛn.tə/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /emˈpen.ta/

empenta f (plural empentes)

1. push, shove
2. push (great effort)
3. push (attempt to persuade someone to do something)

• a empentes
• empentar

• empènyer

• → Spanish: empenta

• Joan Coromines; José A. Pascual (1984), “empellón”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), volume II (Ce–F), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 577
• “empenta” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “empenta” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Borrowed from Aragonese empenta or Catalan empenta, a noun based ultimately on some analogical past participle derived from Latin impingere (as if from Vulgar Latin *impincta, but not directly, because that would have yielded *empinta). Displaced in Modern Spanish by words such as empujón.

empenta f (plural empentas)

1. (obsolete) shove; push

• Joan Coromines; José A. Pascual (1984), “empellón”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), volume II (Ce–F), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 577

• “empenta”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014