concura

Forms

concura (third-person singular present concurează, past participle concurat) 1st conjugation^[1] Older Romanian also had a variant concurge, shaped on the native verb curge.^[2][3] Negulici in 1848 spelled the verb concurare in the transitional alphabet and noted that it was used as a first-conjugation verb, with concur or concurez in the present.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French concourir and Latin concurrere: DEX, MDA2 and Ciorănescu name both, DELR and Wiktionary the French verb, and the neologism dictionaries both, with the Latin first in DN.^{[5][6][2][3][1][7]} The French verb is itself borrowed from the Latin, which is formed con- and currō (“to run”), and first meant “to run together”, then “to meet, coincide”.^[3][8][9] The DA calls the verb a new formation after French and points to its doublet concurge.^[10]

The old variant adapted the Latin stem to Romanian: DELR derives it from the Latin verb with the stem Romanianised, while Ciorănescu says it was assimilated artificially to curge “to flow”.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1818, in a work by Petrovici, with the senses “to compete for the same goal; to contribute to a result”.^[3] Tiktin's first record is about 1830.^[11] The DA's earliest quotation, from Russo, has the older sense of several things converging: all the idioms mixed in French “concurred to form” the language.^[10][6]

Semantic evolution

The DA describes three senses: tending together towards one point or result, and by extension contributing (which it calls a Gallicism); competing, especially in trade; and competing with others for a post, prize or scholarship.^[10] Ghica uses the commercial sense, of merchants who should not bring in foreign goods to compete with those made at home.^[10] Șăineanu in 1929 gave cooperating, competing for a prize and sitting the examinations of a competition for a chair.^[12] Today the sense of taking part in a contest comes first in DEX.^[5]

The DA noted that two present tenses competed: concurez, mostly in the senses of rivalry, and concur, almost only in the sense of converging.^[10] DEX now gives only concurez.^[5]

Timeline

• 1787 – the noun concurs, taken from German Konkurs and later again from French.^[3]
• 1818 – first record of the verb, in Petrovici.^[3]
• c. 1830 – Tiktin's first record.^[11]
• c. 1832 – concurent and concurență in a work by I. Golescu.^[3]
• 1848 – Negulici's dictionary of neologisms records the verb with both present tenses.^[4]
• 1978 – concurențial in the DN.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take part in a contest or competition: Echipa noastră concurează la campionat.^[5][6]
2. To tend towards the same result or aim; to contribute to one result.^[5][6]
3. (also reflexive and transitive) To compete in trade, to be in rivalry with someone.^[5][6]

Word family

• concurență
• concurențial
• concurs
• concurent

Related words

• curge
• French concourir
• Latin concurrō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. concura
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. concura
4. ^ a b 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
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. 217
6. ^ 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, 481
7. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. concura
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c d e 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. concura
11. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. concura
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 156