aprecia

Forms

aprecia (third-person singular present apreciează, past participle apreciat), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French apprécier.^[2][3][4][1] MDA2 and Marcu name borrowed from Late Latin appretiō (“to appraise”) as a second source, as Romanian dictionaries often do for neologisms.^[5][6] The French verb was itself taken from that Late Latin verb, formed on pretium (“price”).^[2][7]

The 19th-century variant ⟨apreția⟩ follows the spelling of the French word's etymon, according to DELR;^[2][3] Ciorănescu explains it from the French with the analogy of preț.^[2][3] The variant ⟨aprețui⟩ is a Romanian adaptation after prețui.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is of 1846, in the form aprețiá, in a text of Laurian;^[2][8] Tiktin gives the same year.^[2][8] The form aprețui follows in Negulici's dictionary of 1848.^[2] The early sense was “to set a value on, to esteem”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The verb kept the French range: to set a price or value on something, to think well of someone, and to judge or consider that something is so.^[4][5] The variants apreția and aprețui were common in 19th-century writing but are now obsolete.^[3] A financial sense, of a currency or a price that rises in value, is recorded in the press from 1998;^[9][2] Dimitrescu and DELR explain it from the opposite verb deprecia.^[9][2]

The family came in the same years: apreciabil, apreciativ and apreciator are all in Negulici's dictionary of 1848.^[2]

Timeline

• 1846 – aprețiá in Laurian, the first record; also aprețiăciune “appreciation”.^[2]
• 1848 – aprețui, aprețiabil, aprețiativ and aprețiator in Negulici's dictionary.^[2]
• 1867 – aprecia in Titu Maiorescu's critical essays.^[5]
• 1919 – the noun autoapreciere “self-assessment”.^[2]
• 1998 – the sense “to gain in value”, of the leu.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To set the price or value of something, to evaluate.^[4][5][1]
2. To value someone or something for their qualities, to esteem: Îi apreciem munca. “We value his work.”^[4][5]
3. To judge, to consider that something is so.^[4][6]
4. (reflexive, finance) Of a currency, shares or prices: to rise in value.^[2][9]

Word family

• apreciabil
• apreciativ
• apreciație
• autoaprecia
• inapreciabil
• subaprecia
• supraaprecia
• apreciator

Related words

• preț
• prețui
• deprecia

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. aprecia
3. ^ a b c d 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. aprecia
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 55
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 82
6. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. aprecia
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. apprécier
8. ^ 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. aprecia
9. ^ a b c d Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. aprecia