comandant

Forms

comandant m (plural comandanți, feminine equivalent comandantă)^[1] Old texts have comendant, comendat, comândant and comăndat.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French commandant, the form DEX, MDA2 and Ciorănescu name.^[5][3][6][1] DELR, after the DÎLR, also names German Kommandant, itself from French, as a source.^[2] The DN compares Italian comandante.^[7] Wiktionary notes that it also reads as comanda with the suffix -ant.^[1]

The older forms came by other routes, as Tiktin notes.^[4] The forms comendant and comendat are from Polish komendant, perhaps also from Russian комендант (komendant), and the DÎLR also names Hungarian and older German forms.^[2][6][3] The form comândant was adapted after the verb comânda.^[2]

The French noun belongs to commander (“to command”), which DELR traces to Latin commendō (“to entrust, commend”), refashioned late after mandō (“to entrust, order”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Dosoftei's Viața și petrecerea sfinților (1683), in the form comendat: a commander of troops.^[2][4][3]

Semantic evolution

The word kept its military sense: the officer in command of a unit, a ship or a garrison.^[5][3] In the 18th century it had rivals: comândaș and comanduitor, and comandir, from Russian, used in Transylvania and in the principalities under foreign occupation.^[6][2] Tiktin records general-comandant, the former title of the commander of an army corps.^[4] The feminine comandantă, first “the wife of a commander”, then a woman in command, is recorded from 1936.^[2]

Timeline

• 1683 – comendat in Dosoftei's lives of the saints.^[2][4]
• 1700–1712 – comendie “command”, in Nicolae Costin.^[2]
• 1736 – the rival comendir, comandir.^[2]
• 1800 – the verb comanda, as comenda.^[2]
• 1856 – comandament “command, headquarters”.^[2]
• 1936 – the feminine comandantă.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. commander: the person who commands a military unit, a ship, a garrison or similar.^[5][3][1]
2. Comandant suprem: the commander-in-chief of a state's armed forces, or of the forces of a group of allied states, especially in wartime.^[5][3]
3. (obsolete) comandant al pieței: the officer who supervised the activity of a garrison town.^[5]

Word family

• comandantă

Related words

• comanda
• comandă
• comandament
• comandir
• comandor

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. comanda
3. ^ 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, 466
4. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. comandant
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 208
6. ^ a b c 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. comanda
7. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. comandant