Etymology and origin of the Romanian word comite
comite1 to commit
Etymology tree of comite1
Forms
comite (third-person singular present comite, past participle comis, third-person subjunctive comită) 3rd conjugation[1]
Etymology
The word for “to commit” is borrowed from Latin committō (“to join; to entrust; to undertake, commit”), a learned borrowing, as well as borrowed from French commettre.[2][3][4][1] DEX, DN and NODEX name only the Latin word, Tiktin both.[5][6][7][8] It is conjugated like trimite.[3][8][9] The source verb is formed from Latin con- + mittō (“to send”).[1]
The same Latin verb was inherited as the old verb a se cumeta “to dare”, whence încumeta, a doublet of the learned verb.[10][1][11] The French verb is itself borrowed from Latin, about 1216; since the 14th century it has meant “to carry out, be guilty of”.[12]
Earliest recorded meaning
DELR's first record is of 1799: Iorgovici proposed the verb in a list of new words for Romanian; the next record is from Heliade-Rădulescu in 1847.[2] The sense was from the start that of doing something wrong: an offence, a sin or a mistake.[2][8] Pontbriant's dictionary of 1862 glosses it with French commettre and “to commit a fault, be at fault”.[13]
Semantic evolution
The verb almost always takes a bad deed as its object: a crime, a sin, a mistake, an indiscretion.[9][5] Used ironically, “to commit” a play or a poem means to write a poor one.[9][4] A legal sense taken from French, “to entrust someone with a piece of work or a commercial matter”, appears in the civil code and is now obsolete;[9][4] from it comes comitent “the person who gives such a commission”, recorded from 1837, a loan from German Kommittent and Italian committente.[2]
Timeline
- 1799 – proposed by Iorgovici in a list of new words, the first record.[2][8]
- 1837 – comitent “one who gives a commission”.[2]
- 1847 – used by Heliade-Rădulescu.[2]
- 1862 – Pontbriant: “to commit a fault”.[13]
- 1875 – the first record MDA2 cites, in Alecsandri's plays.[4]
Meanings
Verb
- To commit, perpetrate: to do something wrong, such as a mistake, an offence or a crime: Hoțul a comis furtul noaptea.[5][4]
- (colloquial, ironic) To write a mediocre work.[4][9]
- (law, obsolete) To entrust someone with a piece of work or a commercial matter.[4][9]
Word family
- comitent
- comitere
comite2 count, head of a comitat
Etymology tree of comite2
Forms
comite m (plural comiți)[1]
Etymology
The word for the count and the head of a county is borrowed from Latin comes (“companion”), taken as a learned word with its oblique stem ⟨comit-⟩.[2][5][4][1] The Latin word first meant “companion”; it named the members of a Roman emperor's retinue and then particular dignitaries.[2] DN also compares Italian comite.[14] It is in turn a compound from Latin com- (“together”) + eō (“to go”), “one who goes with another”.[2][15][16]
The same Latin word reached Romanian by other routes as conte and comis, doublets of this word.[17][9] In the Romance languages it gave conte, French comte and Spanish conde.[18]
Earliest recorded meaning
DELR's first record is of 1845, in the Magazin istoric pentru Dacia, in the sense of a count.[2] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 refers the word to conte.[19]
Semantic evolution
Besides a count in general, the word was used for Hungarian gróf and above all for the officials of the Hungarian counties: Barițiu's Hungarian–Romanian dictionary of 1869 renders főispán as “supreme comite, prefect of a comitat” and alispán as vicecomite.[20][21] In Transylvania before 1918 the comite suprem was the prefect of a county.[9] Romanian also took comitat “county”, recorded from 1770–1780, and vicecomite (1876).[2] Today the word is historical.[4][22]
Timeline
- 1770–1780 – comitat “county” in Gherasim Putneanul's geography.[2]
- 1845 – comite “count” in the Magazin istoric pentru Dacia, the first record.[2]
- 1869 – Barițiu gives comite for Hungarian gróf and ispán.[20]
- 1870 – Costinescu: comite = conte.[19]
- 1876 – vicecomite in Ghica.[2]
Meanings
Noun
- (historical) The administrative head of a comitat, a county in Hungary and Transylvania.[5][4]
- (dated) A count.[4][9][23]
- (Transylvania, obsolete) A grof.[4]
Word family
- comitat
- vicecomite
Related words
Usage notes
DEX numbers the verb comite¹ (stressed comíte) and the noun comite² (stressed cómite, plural comiți).[5]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ 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. comite
- ^ 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. comite
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 471
- ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 211
- ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. comite
- ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. comite
- ^ 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. comíte
- ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. comite
- ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 60
- ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. committere
- ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. commettre
- ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 145
- ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. comite
- ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. comes
- ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
- ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 82
- ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. comes
- ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 219
- ^ a b Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 263
- ^ Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 200
- ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 503
- ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. comite
Related etymologies
Cite this entry
“Comite.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/comite. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.
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