distant

Forms

distant m or n (feminine singular distantă, masculine plural distanți, feminine/neuter plural distante)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French distant.^[2][3][4][1] Scriban gives Latin distāns directly, the participle of distō (“to stand apart”), and Negulici set the Latin word beside the entry in 1848.^[5][6] The French adjective was borrowed from Latin in the 14th century; that verb is formed from Latin dis- + stō (“to stand”).^[7]

DELR lists the adjective in the family of distanță.^[2] The moral sense “keeping others at a distance” appeared in French in 1829, probably after the English word distant.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is from 1840, in Poenaru, Aaron and Hill, with both the sense “keeping others at a distance” and the old sense “far apart”.^[2] Negulici's vocabulary of 1848 glosses it “far off, far away”.^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word mostly meant “remote, at a distance”: Costinescu glosses it so in 1870, and Odobescu writes of ditches „distante unul de altul” “distant from one another”.^[8][9] That sense is now old, and the word describes people who keep others at a distance, coldly polite and reserved, and their manner.^[9][3] The DLR's quotations for it begin with Eftimiu, Camil Petrescu and the CADE dictionary of 1931.^[9]

Timeline

• 1840 – first record, in Poenaru, Aaron and Hill.^[2]
• 1848 – in Negulici's vocabulary of new words, glossed “far away”.^[6][4]
• 1870 – distantŭ “far apart” in Costinescu's dictionary.^[8]
• 1883 – the verb distanța, as distanțare.^[2]
• 1904 – distal, from French.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (of people) aloof: coldly polite and reserved, keeping others at a distance;^[3][4] (of manner) showing such coldness.^[3][4]
2. (dated) remote, far apart.^[4][9]

Related words

• distanță
• distanța
• French distant

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. distanță
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 322
4. ^ 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, 730
5. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 433
6. ^ a b c 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
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 348
9. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. distant