adecvat

Forms

adecvat m or n (feminine singular adecvată, masculine plural adecvați, feminine/neuter plural adecvate)^[1] An older variant is adecuat, used by Sebastian.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French adéquat (“adequate”), with its form remodelled on the French word's own source, Latin adaequātus.^[3][4][5][1] MDA2, DEX and Marcu name both French and Latin as sources.^[6][4][7] Marcu and Maneca also compare German adäquat.^[8]

The Latin word is the past participle of adaequō (“to make equal, equal, compare”), which in Christian Latin also meant “to correspond exactly”; it is formed from ad- and aequō (“to level, make equal”), from aequus (“equal”).^[3] French borrowed it in the 14th century; the word spread in the 18th, first as a term of scholastic philosophy, and became common in the sense “well suited” in the 1860s.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1842, in Asachi, in the sense “suitable, corresponding”.^[3][5] MDA2 cites Titu Maiorescu's Critice first.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Besides the everyday sense “suitable, fitting”, the word has a philosophical one: of ideas and knowledge, “faithfully matching their object”, as in cunoaștere adecvată “knowledge that reflects the essential features of a thing”.^[4][8] It may take a complement in the dative or with la.^[2]

Its family followed in the second half of the 19th century: inadecvat (1876, Laurian and Massim's inadecat), adecvare (before 1889, Eminescu's adecuare), and the verb adecva (1901), a back-formation from the adjective or the noun.^[3]

Timeline

• 1842 – adecvat in Asachi, the first record.^[3][5]
• 1876 – the negative inadecat, modern inadecvat, after French inadéquat.^[3]
• before 1889 – adecuare “matching” in Eminescu, after French adéquation.^[3]
• 1901 – the verb adecva “to make or become adequate” in Petică.^[3]
• 1934 – inadecvare in Ionescu's Nu.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. appropriate, suitable, fitting.^[4][1]
2. (philosophy; of ideas, knowledge) That matches its object faithfully.^[4][7]

Word family

• adecva
• adecvare
• inadecvare
• inadecvat

Related words

• Latin aequus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 22
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. adecvat
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 13
5. ^ 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. adecvat
6. ^ 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, 15
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. adecvat
8. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. adecvat
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. adéquat