amant

Forms

amant m (plural amanți, feminine equivalent amantă)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French amant (“lover”), originally the present participle of Old French amer (“to love”) (modern aimer), from Latin amō (“to love”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DEX, MDA2, DN and DILF also name Latin amāns (“loving”), the Latin present participle, as a source.^[5][6][7][8] The old variant ⟨amante⟩ is from Italian amante.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1794, in a calendar printed in Vienna, where the feminine amantă appears the same year.^[2][4] The sense was already “a man who has a love affair outside marriage”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In 1848 Negulici defined the word as “one who loves passionately”, and Șăineanu still gave that sense in 1929.^[9][10] Ciorănescu notes that it was a word of literary expressiveness in the Romantic period and later fell to a vulgar ring, like French maîtresse.^[3] DA called it the more literary word for the popular ibovnic and drăguț.^[11] Today it means mainly a lover outside marriage; the older sense “one who loves and is loved” survives in MDA2 and DN.^[5][6][7]

Timeline

• 1794 – amant, amante and amantă in a Vienna calendar.^[2][4]
• 1848 – Negulici's dictionary of neologisms: “one who loves passionately”.^[9]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary records it with the feminine amantă.^[12]
• 1872 – MDA2's first record, in Constantin Negruzzi's works.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lover: a person who has a love affair with someone they are not married to;^[5][6][1] amantă is the woman.^[5][6][1]
2. A person who loves and is loved in return.^[6][7]

Related words

• amantă
• amor
• ibovnic

Usage notes

The variant amante (from Italian) is obsolete.^[2] Popular synonyms are ibovnic and drăguț; slang has others, such as gagic.^[6][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. amant
3. ^ a b 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. amant
4. ^ 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. amánt
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 33
6. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 49
7. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. amant
8. ^ 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. amant
9. ^ 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, p. s.v. amant
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 20
11. ^ 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. amant
12. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 35
13. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. amant