afecta

Forms

afecta (third-person singular present afectează, past participle afectat), 1st conjugation.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French affecter, a French verb borrowed from Latin.^{[3][4][2][1][5]} Tiktin adds Italian affettare as a second model, and the neologism dictionaries give French, Italian and Latin together.^[6][7][8]

The French verb comes from Latin affectō (“to strive after; to feign”), which in Medieval Latin also meant “to assign to a purpose”.^[3][9] The Latin verb is formed on afficiō (“to put in a state, to affect”), from ad- and faciō (“to do, make”).^[3][9] DELR explains the sense “to harm, to move painfully” by the base verb and its derivatives affectus and affectiō, the sources of afect and afecțiune.^[3] The DA compares the Romanian sense “to touch, move” with French usage.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Cornelli, about 1832, cited by Tiktin and DELR.^[3][6] Tiktin gives the senses “to show off, to feign”, “to assign (a sum to the payment of a debt)” and “to attack, to seize”.^[6] Older texts also wrote it afepta.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Negulici's dictionary of 1848 has the Latinist affectare with the senses “to pretend, to show too much feeling”, “to imitate someone's manners”, “to be truly grieved” and “to be struck by an illness”.^[10] The DA (1913) takes “to touch” as the basic sense, from which come “to move, upset” and, in law, “to commit property to a purpose, to mortgage”; beside them stands “to show a feeling one does not have”.^[5] The pejorative intransitive and reflexive use, “to put on airs”, is recorded by the DA and DLRLC.^[5][11]

In current usage the commonest sense is “to harm, to damage”, which DEX 2009 gives as the third sense of the second verb.^[2] Șăineanu also recorded “to take a particular form”, said of crystals, a sense taken from French.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1832 – first record, in Cornelli.^[3][6]
• 1848 – affectare “to feign, to be grieved” in Negulici.^[10]
• 1875 – affecta glossed by French affecter, toucher, émouvoir.^[13]
• 1913 – the DA describes the sense “to commit property to a purpose, to mortgage”.^[5][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To allocate or assign a sum of money or a quantity of materials to a given purpose.^[2][4]
2. (dated) To mortgage property.^[4][5]
3. To sadden, to grieve or move someone deeply: Vestea l-a afectat mult.^[2][4]
4. To feign a feeling or state of mind one does not have.^[2][4]
5. (intransitive and reflexive, pejorative) To behave unnaturally, to put on airs; sclifosi.^[2][7]
6. To harm, damage or impair: Seceta a afectat recolta.^[2][4]

Word family

• afectabil
• afectare
• dezafecta

Related words

• afect
• afectiv
• afecțiune
• afectuos
• afectație

Usage notes

DEX 2009 and DILF split the word into two headwords from the same French verb: afecta¹ “to allocate (money, materials)” and afecta² “to sadden; to feign; to harm”;^[2][14][4] MDA2 has two entries as well.^[2][14][4] Its verbal noun is afectare.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 18
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. afecta
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 23
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. afecta
6. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. afecta
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. afecta
8. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. afecta
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b 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
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 35
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 10
13. ^ Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 6
14. ^ a b c Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. afecta