administrator

Forms

administrator m (plural administratori, feminine equivalent administratoare)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin administrātor (“manager, director”), French administrateur and, for DELR, German Administrator as well: a neologism with several models.^[2][3][4][1] The DA gives only the Latin source, Tiktin the French and the New Latin ones.^[5][6] The Latin noun is formed from administrō (“to manage, direct”) with the agent suffix -tor.^[7] In Romanian it can be read as administra with the suffix -tor.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is from 1787, as “a person who administers”.^[2] Tiktin's is from 1791, with the sense “steward, manager”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the steward of an estate or of someone's affairs, as Șăineanu and Scriban still define it, with administrator de moșie and administrator de plasă for the head of a rural district.^[8][9] The 19th-century dictionaries also stressed it on the last syllable, administratór, after French.^[5][10] In the 20th century it became the title of the person who runs an administrative service or a company, administrator delegat “managing director”.^[11][3] In the 2000s administrator de rețea “network administrator” was formed after English.^[12]

Timeline

• 1787 – the first record.^[2]
• 1791 – “steward, manager”.^[6]
• 1865 – in Pisone's dictionary, with Latin administrator and procurator.^[13]
• 1870 – in Costinescu's dictionary, for the head of a public institution.^[14]
• 1883 – the feminine administratoare.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who administers something; the head of an administration or of an administrative service.^[3][4]
2. A person who heads a service in the state administration.^[3]
3. administrator delegat: a person empowered by a company's board to run the company; a managing director.^[11][15]

Word family

• administratoare

Related words

• administra
• administrație
• administrativ
• Latin administrātor

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. administra
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 14
4. ^ 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, 17
5. ^ 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. administrator
6. ^ 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. administrator
7. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 8
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 72
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 27
11. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. administrator
12. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. administrator
13. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 6
14. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 18
15. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. administrator