confrunta

Forms

confrunta (third-person singular present confruntă, past participle confruntat) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French confronter, with the ⟨u⟩ of frunte “forehead” in place of the French ⟨o⟩.^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary sees the model of înfrunta in it, and Tiktin and the Dicționar de neologisme also name Medieval Latin cōnfrontō.^[1][5][6] The old variant confronta keeps the French vowel.^[2][7]

The French verb first meant “to border on, to mark the bounds of a piece of land”, from the Medieval Latin legal verb, recorded in Gascony in 1289 and formed on con- and Latin frōns (“forehead, front”).^[2][8] French developed the sense “to compare” in 1538 and used it in criminal law for confronting witnesses from 1585.^[8] Graur puts it in this Latin family, with front and frontieră.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is in Crișan-Körösi's vocabulary of 1802–1803, and Tiktin's in Crișan in 1805.^[2][5] Șincai's chronicle has it in the legal sense: „confruntându-i pre dânșii între sine” “confronting them with one another”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was legal, setting an accused face to face with his accuser and the witnesses to find the truth;^[10][7] Negulici defined it so in 1848, and added “to compare”.^[10][7] Bălcescu used it for comparing maps with one another, and comparing a copy with its original became a common use.^[7][11] Camil Petrescu has the reflexive for people sizing each other up.^[7]

The reflexive a se confrunta cu “to be faced with a problem”, after French, is recorded from 1959 and common in the press of the 1970s.^[12][13] DELR dates confruntație, from French confrontation, to 1840; the regular verbal noun is confruntare.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 1802–1803 – confrunta in Crișan-Körösi's vocabulary, the first record.^[2]
• 1840 – the noun confruntație “confrontation”.^[2]
• 1848 – Negulici defines confruntare as confronting an accused with the witnesses, and comparing.^[10]
• 1959 – the reflexive “to be faced with a difficulty”, after French, in a dictionary of neologisms.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To confront: to bring two or more people face to face to test the truth of what they say.^[4][13][1]
2. To set objects, works or phenomena side by side to check or compare them: a confrunta traducerea cu originalul “to check the translation against the original”.^[4][13]
3. (reflexive, with cu) To face a difficult situation or problem.^[4][13]

Word family

• confruntație
• confruntare

Related words

• frunte
• înfrunta
• front

Usage notes

The present is confrunt;^[13][10] confruntez is rare, though Negulici in 1848 gave both.^[13][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. confrunta
3. ^ 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. confrunta
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 221
5. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. confrunta
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. confrunta
7. ^ a b c d e f 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. confrunta
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
10. ^ a b c d e 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. confruntare
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 521
12. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. confrunta
13. ^ 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, 485