ambulant

Forms

ambulant m or n (feminine singular ambulantă, masculine plural ambulanți, feminine/neuter plural ambulante)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French ambulant, with Latin ambulāns (“walking”) as a second model in MDA2, DEX and Marcu and Maneca;^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Tiktin names Italian ambulante beside the French.^[6] The French adjective is a Renaissance Latinism, first recorded in Rabelais in 1558.^[7]

The Latin form is the present participle of ambulō (“to walk, to go about”).^[2][1] Romanian inherited that verb as umbla (older îmbla); plimba continues perambulō and preambul is a later loan from the same family.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1837.^[2][6] The DA quotes cântăreț ambulant “wandering singer” from Iacob Negruzzi.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

Its main use is for people whose trade takes them from place to place: CADE in 1931 has negustor ambulant “street vendor, pedlar”, actori ambulanți “travelling actors” and spital ambulant “field hospital”.^[10] The DLRLC called the street-vendor sense obsolescent in the 1950s.^[11] The noun ambulanță, recorded from about 1832, first meant a military field hospital and now an ambulance.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1832 – ambulanță “field hospital”, the first word of the family.^[2]
• 1837 – ambulant, the first record.^[2][6]
• 1870 – ambulantŭ in Costinescu's dictionary.^[12]
• 1931 – negustor ambulant, actori ambulanți and spital ambulant in CADE.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Moving from one place to another, with no fixed place; itinerant, peripatetic.^[4][1]
2. Of a trade or profession: carried on while travelling about: negustor ambulant “pedlar, street vendor”.^[11][10]

Word family

• ambulanță

Related words

• umbla
• plimba

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. ambulant
3. ^ 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, 51
4. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 34
5. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. ambulant
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. ambulánt
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
9. ^ 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. ambulant
10. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. ambulant
11. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 74
12. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 36