client

Forms

client m (plural clienți)^[1] An old variant is cliente.^[2] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 prints it in Cyrillic as клiент.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French client and the Latin cliēns, a learned borrowing of the 19th century.^[2][4][5][6] Wiktionary names the French word, itself a learned borrowing from Latin;^[1][7] Marcu and Maneca put the Latin word first and compare Italian cliente.^[1][7] French borrowed the Latin word in 1437, after the derivative clienton of 1345.^[8]

The Latin word is probably an old participle of a verb on the root Proto-Indo-European *ḱley- (“to lean”), seen in clīnō (“to bend, incline”) and Ancient Greek κλίνω (klínō).^[2] De Vaan reconstructs *ḱli-ent- (“who leans”), an active participle of a root aorist, the client being the one who leans on, or depends on, a patron.^[9] Wiktionary also gives an older explanation, an alteration of cluēns, the participle of clueō (“to be called, be esteemed”);^[1][8] DHLF calls the origin unknown, perhaps Etruscan.^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Șincai's chronicle, about 1812, in the Roman sense of a follower under the protection of a powerful man.^[2][6] MDA2 dates the word only to Odobescu's writings of 1887.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the word named a plebeian who placed himself under the protection of a patrician, his patron; this is the first sense in Romanian too.^[10][2] By extension it came to mean the protégé of an influential person, especially of a politician.^[11][2] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 already has the person defended by a lawyer and the patient of a doctor.^[3] The commercial sense, a customer of a shop or a regular guest of an inn or café, followed, with mușteriu as a synonym.^[11][5] French went through the same senses, the idea of payment replacing that of protection.^[8]

The feminine clientă is recorded from 1871 and clientelă “the clients as a whole” from 1812; clientelism, for winning political or economic support with illicit rewards, is recorded from 1997.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1812 – first record, in Șincai's chronicle, for a Roman client;^[2][6] clientelă in the same work.^[2][6]
• 1848 – the client of a lawyer and the patient of a doctor, in Negulici's dictionary.^[3]
• 1871 – the feminine clientă, in Laurian and Massim's dictionary.^[2]
• 1887 – in Odobescu's writings.^[4]
• 1939 – clientelar “based on favouritism”.^[2]
• 1997 – clientelism in the press.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A customer: someone who buys regularly from a shop, or eats and drinks in a restaurant or café, seen in relation to the seller: un client fidel al librăriei “a loyal customer of the bookshop”.^[5][4][1]
2. A client of a lawyer, a doctor or another professional who serves them for a fee.^[5][4]
3. (historical) In ancient Rome, a plebeian without full rights who depended on a patrician and was protected by him.^[5][4]
4. (by extension) The protégé of an influential person.^[11][2]

Word family

• clientelar
• clientelă
• clientelism
• clientă

Related words

• mușteriu
• pacient
• Latin cliēns

Usage notes

The feminine is clientă (plural cliente); the word is pronounced in three syllables, cli-ent.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. client
3. ^ 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. client
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 434
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 195
6. ^ 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. client
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. client
8. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c 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. client