eficient

Forms

eficient m or n (feminine singular eficientă, masculine plural eficienți, feminine/neuter plural eficiente)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French efficient and directly borrowed from Latin efficiēns, one of the 19th-century neologisms with a double model.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Marcu and Maneca and CADE name only the French word, Scriban only the Latin one.^[6][7][8] The Latin adjective is the present participle of efficiō (“to bring about, accomplish”), formed on faciō (“to do, make”) with the prefix ex-.^[2][9]

In Latin it was mainly a term of philosophy, for the cause that produces something;^[9][10] French took it in that use in 1290 and added the everyday sense “effective, productive” after English in 1948.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1854, in a work by Zalomit, both in the general sense “producing the desired effect” and in cauză eficientă, the efficient cause of Aristotelian philosophy.^[2] MDA2 gives Protopopescu and Popescu's dictionary of neologisms of 1862.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word belonged chiefly to the learned phrase cauză eficientă: Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 gives it as a medical term for the cause that brings on a disease, Barcianu's German gloss is bewirkend “causing”, and Scriban's example names the sun as the efficient cause of heat.^[11][12][8] The DLRLC of 1955–1957 still marks it as rare.^[13] Today it is a common synonym of eficace, “producing the expected result”, and has a family of its own: eficiență (1869), ineficient (1932), eficientiza (1952).^[4][2]

Timeline

• 1854 – eficient in Zalomit, the first record.^[2]
• 1862 – Protopopescu and Popescu's dictionary of neologisms.^[3]
• 1869 – eficiență, from efficience and Italian efficienza.^[2]
• 1925 – neeficiență.^[2]
• 1932 – ineficient and ineficiență.^[2]
• 1952 – eficientiza “to make efficient”.^[2]
• 1996 – ecoeficient, from English eco-efficient.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. efficient, effective: producing the desired or expected result; suited to its purpose: o metodă eficientă de învățare.^[4][14][15]
2. (philosophy) In cauză eficientă: the efficient cause, the one that produces a thing.^[2][8]

Word family

• eficientiza
• eficiență
• ineficient
• ineficiență
• neeficient
• neeficiență
• ultraeficient
• ecoeficient

Related words

• efect
• face

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. eficient
3. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 790
4. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 344
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. eficient
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. eficient
7. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. eficient
8. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 461
9. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 372
12. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 205
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 200
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. eficient
15. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. eficient