adopta

Forms

adopta (third-person singular present adoptă or (dated) adoptează, past participle adoptat) 1st conjugation^[1] The present is adopt and, less often, adoptez.^[2][3] An old variant adoptarisi is recorded.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French adopter and, in the Latin of the neologisms, borrowed from Latin adoptō, which is formed from ad- and optō (“to choose”).^[4][6][3] The dictionaries of neologisms differ in emphasis: Marcu and Maneca put Latin first and compare French and German adoptieren, while Marcu's later dictionary puts French first.^[7][8] DA and Tiktin give French alone.^[2][5] The French verb is itself a 13th-century borrowing of the Latin legal term.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is from 1815, in the variant adoptisi; the form adopta follows in 1828, in Bojincă.^[4] Tiktin dates the word to 1823.^[5] The noun adopție is older still, from 1808.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense “to take a child as one's own” came with the word, and so did the figurative “to make another's view or way of acting one's own”;^[10] DA quotes Negruzzi for it.^[2][4] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 lists both senses and a third, “to sanction by law”, which became the parliamentary sense “to pass by vote”.^[10][6] Șăineanu's example in 1929 is Camera a adoptat legea “the Chamber passed the bill”.^[11]

Timeline

• 1808 – the noun adopție “adoption”.^[4]
• 1815 – the variant adoptisi, the first record of the verb.^[4]
• 1823 – adopta in a record cited by Tiktin.^[5]
• 1828 – the form adopta in Bojincă.^[4]
• 1831 – adoptiv “adoptive”.^[4]
• 1848 – adoptare in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms;^[10] adoptabil “adoptable”.^[10][4]
• 1859 – adoptant “one who adopts”.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To adopt a child, taking it legally into one's family.^[6][12]
2. To take up someone else's view or behaviour; to accept an opinion or a method: A adoptat obiceiurile noii sale țări.^[6][3]
3. To approve something by vote: Parlamentul a adoptat bugetul.^[6][12]

Word family

• adoptabil
• adoptator
• adoptiv
• adopție

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. adopta
3. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 18
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. adopta
5. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. adopta
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 15
7. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. adopta
8. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. adopta
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c d Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. adoptare
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 8
12. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. adopta