conte

Forms

conte m (plural conți, feminine equivalent contesă)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French comte, with Italian conte as a second model in Ciorănescu, Tiktin and DELR.^[2][3][4] DEX, Wiktionary and the DLRM name French alone.^[5][1][6] The DA calls it a neologism after French, comparing Italian.^[7] DELR adds that the word first came in through Greek, κόντες (kóntes).^[4] That Greek word is itself from the Italian.^[8][9]

The French and Italian words continue Latin comes (“companion”), from its accusative, which became the title of an official of the emperor and then of a feudal lord.^[10][11][7] The Latin word is a compound of com- (“together”) and the root of eō (“to go”): “one who goes along”.^{[12][13][14][4]}

Romanian has the same Latin word in two other forms: comite, a learned form, and comis, which came through Greek.^[2][15] In the 17th century the pure Latin form was also used, and in Transylvania under Hungarian rule the learned form also meant a civil governor.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to about 1660, in a Romanian chronograph.^[4] Tiktin's first record is of 1747, MDA2's the history of Dumitrache, which covers 1769–1774.^[3][16] There a Polish noble signs as „conte al Palatinatului Calischi” “count of the Palatinate of Kalisz”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

DELR gives three senses: a high official of the late Roman emperor, a great feudal lord ruling a province, and a hereditary title between viscount and marquess in the West, or between baron and prince in Russia.^[4] The title is the sense of the 19th-century quotations, which name counts of Flanders, England and Russia.^[7] Costinescu (1870) glossed it with grof and comite.^[17] In slang a conte is a hypocrite.^[18]

The feminine contesă is recorded from 1740.^[4] DELR takes it from Greek, Italian and French, the DA after French.^[4][7] Viconte “viscount” followed in 1827 from French, contat “county” in 1839, and the rare conție “rank of count” and conțesc “of a count” in 1837 and 1870.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1660 – first record, in a Romanian chronograph.^[4]
• 1740 – the feminine contesă.^[4]
• 1747 – Tiktin's first record.^[3]
• 1769–1774 – „conte al Palatinatului Calischi” in Dumitrache's history.^[7][16]
• 1827 – viconte “viscount”.^[4]
• 1837 – conție “the rank of count”.^[4]
• 1839 – contat “county”.^[4]
• 1870 – conțesc “of a count” in Costinescu.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Middle Ages) A great lord ruling a province, with administrative and military powers.^[5][4]
2. A hereditary title of nobility between viconte and marchiz in the West, or between baron and prinț in Russia.^[5][16] Also a person bearing it, a count or earl.^[5][16][1]
3. (slang) A hypocrite.^[18]

Word family

• contat
• contesă
• conțesc
• conție
• viconte
• vicontesă

Related words

• comite
• comis
• Latin comes

Usage notes

DELR records the old variants comte and cont, and the DA quotes cont from Polizu's dictionary.^[4][7] The plural is conți, the feminine contesă.^[5]

A separate word, conté (DEX's conte²), is a thick black drawing pencil with a lead of graphite and clay.^[5][19] It is named after the pencil invented in 1795 by Nicolas-Jacques Conté, and is first recorded in 1962.^[20][5][19]

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. conte
3. ^ 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. conte
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. conte
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 227
6. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. conte
7. ^ a b c d e f g 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. conte
8. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 708
9. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. comte
11. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. conte
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
15. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 82
16. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 494
17. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 241
18. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. conte
19. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. conte
20. ^ 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. conté