absolvi

Forms

absolvi (third-person singular present absolvă or absolvește, past participle absolvit), 4th conjugation^[1] Old and regional forms: absolvirui (spelled absorvirui by Țichindeal in 1814), absolvălui (Micu, around 1800) and a first-conjugation absolva, which the DA records in Transylvania and Bukovina.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowed from Latin absolvō (“to loosen, set free, acquit”), with borrowed from German absolvieren as a second source.^[5][2][4][1] DELR treats the two senses as separate borrowings.^[2] The sense “to forgive, to free from a penalty” is from Latin, with the meaning of French absoudre; the Christian Latin verb already meant “to forgive”.^[2] Its old variant absolvălui is from Hungarian abszolvál.^[2] The sense “to finish one's studies” is from the German and the Latin verb, where the verb had passed from “to release, acquit” to “to discharge, complete”.^[2]

Ciorănescu gives Latin alone and dates the word to the 18th century; he takes the school sense from the vocabulary of education in Austria and Germany.^[6] Tiktin and Wiktionary make German the source, with the Latin verb behind it.^[4][1] The DA calls it a neologism from Latin that moved into the fourth and the first conjugations.^[3]

The Latin verb is formed from ab- (“from, away”) and solvō (“to loosen, release”).^[1][7] The German verb is recorded from the 13th century in the sense “to bring to an end” and in the school sense from the 16th century.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's earliest record is the variant absolvălui “to pardon, to free from a penalty” in a work of Samuil Micu of about 1800;^[2][4] Tiktin also dates the word to about 1800.^[2][4] The school sense follows in 1814, as absorvirui in Țichindeal, and the form absolvi is recorded in that sense in 1827.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The two senses came in by different routes and lived side by side: the legal and church sense, “to acquit, to absolve from sin”, and the school sense, “to complete a course of study”.^[2][10] Damé's dictionary of the 1890s gives only the school sense, and so does Șăineanu in 1929.^[11][12] Today the school sense is the main one, and the legal sense is second.^[5]

The family follows the same split. absoluțiune “absolution” (c. 1800) and absolutoriu “absolving” (c. 1832) came from French and Latin; absolvent “graduate” (1875, Eminescu) came from German and Latin, and absolvență “graduation” is first in Slavici in 1906.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1800 – absolvălui “to pardon” in Micu, and absoluție “absolution”.^[2][4]
• 1814 – absorvirui “to finish one's studies” in Țichindeal.^[2]
• 1827 – the form absolvi in the school sense.^[2]
• 1839 – absolutorium “school-leaving certificate”, from German.^[2]
• 1842 – the form absolvi in the sense “to pardon”, in Asachi.^[2]
• 1875 – absolvent “graduate” in Eminescu.^[2]
• 1906 – absolvență “graduation” in Slavici.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To graduate from, to finish a school year, a course or a level of education: a absolvit facultatea de drept.^[5][13][1]
2. (transitive, law) To free someone from a penalty; to acquit, to forgive.^[5][14]
3. (dated, church) To absolve someone of sins.^[13][10]

Word family

• absolutoriu
• absolvent
• absolvență
• absoluțiune

Related words

• Latin absolvō
• German absolvieren

Usage notes

The dictionaries keep the two senses apart in the present tense: absolvesc for “to graduate” and absolv for “to acquit”, as DLRM and Marcu and Maneca give them;^[15][16][5] DEX 2009 gives only absolv.^[15][16][5] Ciorănescu notes a tendency, after Iordan, to say eu absolvesc in the school sense.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. absolvi
3. ^ a b Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. absolvi
4. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. absolví
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 3
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. absolvi
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
9. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de, p. s.v. absolvieren
10. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. absolvi
11. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. absolvi
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 2
13. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 4
14. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. absolvi
15. ^ a b Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3
16. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. absolvi