crea

Forms

crea (third-person singular present creează, past participle creat) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French créer and a learned borrowed from Latin creō (“to bring forth, produce”), as DELR, MDA2, DEX and the neologism dictionaries give it.^[2][3][4][5] Ciorănescu puts the Latin word first and the French one beside it, in the 19th century; the DA has it from Latin after the French model.^[6][7]

The Latin verb first meant “to make grow, produce” and was formed on the root of crēscō (“to grow”).^[2][8] From Latin it reached French in the 12th century, first in the religious sense “to bring forth from nothing”.^[9] The Latin word for “to grow” gave Romanian crește by inheritance.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1832: DELR to Bojincă, in the sense “to make something of a kind that did not exist before”.^[2][11] Negulici's dictionary of neologisms of 1848 glosses creare as “to make from nothing, to give being, to imagine, to invent”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The religious sense, God creating the world from nothing, stood beside the general sense of making something new from the start.^[7][3] The verb soon covered founding a society or an institution, establishing a post or a pension, and causing trouble or discussions, a crea discuții.^[7][3] In the theatre a crea un rol first meant to play a part for the first time, later to play it with originality.^[7][4] MDA2 also records a crea cadre “to train people for a mission or career”.^[3]

The family came in mostly from French: creator is recorded from 1829, creativ from 1875–1876 and creativitate from 1941.^[2] Creatură is older: DELR has it from 1681, in Dosoftei, as a learned loan from Latin creatura, later supported by French, Italian and German.^[2]

Timeline

• 1681 – creatură “creature” in Dosoftei.^[2]
• 1829 – creator “creator”.^[2]
• 1832 – crea “to create”, the first record of the verb.^[2][11]
• 1848 – creare in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[12]
• 1875–1876 – creativ “creative” in Conta.^[2]
• 1941 – creativitate “creativity”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To create, make something that did not exist before; to found, set up, organize.^[4][1]
2. To invent, devise; to compose a literary or musical work.^[4][3]
3. To train someone, to prepare them for a career or a mission.^[4][3]
4. (theatre) a crea un rol: to bring a part to life, to play it with skill and originality.^[4][7]

Word family

• creativ
• creativitate
• creatrice
• creatură
• creație
• increat
• procrea
• recrea
• creator

Related words

• crește
• Latin creō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. crea
3. ^ 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, 541
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 247
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. crea
6. ^ 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. crea
7. ^ 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. crea
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 34
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. crea
12. ^ 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