comportament

Forms

comportament n (plural comportamente)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French comportement (“behaviour”).^[2][3][4][1] DN compares Italian comportamento as well.^[5] Within Romanian it reads as comporta with the suffix -ment.^[1] The French noun is formed on comporter, from Latin comportō (“to carry together, to bring into one place”).^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates it to 1883, in Eminescu's writings.^[2]

Semantic evolution

For a long time comportare, recorded from 1794 and itself modelled on French comportement with a Romanian suffix, was the usual word: the dictionaries of the 1950s still label comportament a Gallicism and define it simply as “comportare”.^[2][6][7] Psychology and biology made it a term for the whole of a person's or an organism's reactions to its surroundings, and that sense now stands beside the everyday “conduct”.^[5][3] Its family belongs to these sciences: comportamental (1943), comportamentist (1977) and comportamentism “behaviourism” (1978).^[2]

Timeline

• 1883 – comportament in Eminescu, the first record.^[2]
• 1943 – comportamental “behavioural”.^[2]
• 1955–1958 – still labelled a Gallicism.^[7][6]
• 1978 – comportamentism “behaviourism”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The way one acts and reacts in given circumstances; behaviour, conduită, comportare.^[3][4]
2. The whole of the reactions of an organism or of a group of animals or people to their environment.^[3][8]

Word family

• comportamental
• comportamentism
• comportamentist

Related words

• comporta
• comportare
• French comportement

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. comporta
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 213
4. ^ 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, 474
5. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. comportament
6. ^ a b Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
7. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 508
8. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. comportament