agent

Forms

agent m (plural agenți, feminine equivalent agentă)^[1] The older variant aghent, with a hard /g/, is the form of the first record.^[2][3] The DA notes that in Transylvania the word was said with the German pronunciation.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French agent, also borrowed from Latin agens, the present participle of agō (“to drive, to act”).^[2][3][5][1] Ciorănescu names only the French word, Tiktin the French word, comparing German Agent and the New Latin participle.^[6][7] Scriban derived it from the Latin word alone and took the old variant aghent from Russian агент (agent).^[8] DELR and DEX also see Russian behind that variant, and DELR German as well.^[2][3] Gabinschi counts it among the Europeanisms of Latin origin that came through French, German and Russian.^[9]

The French word is a learned loan of 1332 from scholastic Latin.^[10] The German word came in the 16th century from Italian agente, itself from the Latin participle.^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is aghent in Tempea's history of the church of Șcheii Brașovului, written between 1716 and 1742;^[13] Tiktin dates a record to 1736.^[2][7] An early quotation in the DA, from the Moldavian documents of the Uricariul, shows the diplomatic sense: the prince of the country used to keep an agent in Warsaw.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was a person who handles the affairs of another, a ruler's or a state's representative abroad.^[4] The DA sorted the agents of private interests (the agent of a secret society, the agent provocator paid to stir up unrest, the commercial travelling agent) from the agents of public ones: the police agent, the secret agent, the stockbroker (agent de schimb) and the diplomatic agent.^[4] A second, abstract sense is any force that produces an effect: the DA quotes the geological agents that shape the earth's crust.^[4]

Negulici's glossary of 1848 already gives both senses, the thing that acts and the person who does another's business.^[13] The sense “spy” is now listed separately.^[14][15] The press of recent decades has added job titles such as agent de pază “security guard” and agent de curățenie “cleaner”.^[16]

Timeline

• 1716–1742 – aghent in Tempea's history of the Șchei church, the first record.^[2]
• 1736 – the date of Tiktin's first record.^[7]
• 1792–1793 – the derivative agenție “agency”.^[2]
• 1824 – aghentură, later agentură, from German Agentur.^[2]
• 1848 – listed in Negulici's glossary of neologisms.^[13]
• 1907 – the feminine agentă.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An agent or official representative of an institution, an organisation or a state, charged with particular tasks: agent diplomatic, agent secret.^[3][5]
2. A spy.^[14][15]
3. An active factor that causes physical, chemical or other phenomena: agenți atmosferici “weathering agents”.^[3][5]
4. (biology) agent patogen: a microorganism able to enter and multiply in an animal or plant and cause disease.^[3]
5. (linguistics) nume de agent: a noun or adjective naming the doer of the action of a verb.^[3][5]

Word family

• agentură
• agenție
• subagent
• agentă

Related words

• French agent
• Latin agens

Usage notes

The feminine is agentă, plural agente.^[3][2] The surname Agent comes from the old phrase agent de urmărire, a minor tax collector, which was popular enough to be reshaped as argint de urmărire.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. agent
3. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 20
4. ^ a b c d e 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. agent
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 27
6. ^ 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. agent
7. ^ 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. agent
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 78
9. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 62
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 20
12. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
13. ^ a b c 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. agent
14. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. agent
15. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. agent
16. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. agent
17. ^ Iordan, Iorgu (1983), Dicționar al numelor de familie românești, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 22