evident

Forms

evident m or n (feminine singular evidentă, masculine plural evidenți, feminine/neuter plural evidente)^[1] An older form evidinte occurs in Laurian: „Gura şi mâna s-au făcut cu o destinăciune evidinte” “the mouth and the hand were made for an evident purpose”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French évident, together with Latin ēvidens (“visible, clear”), as DELR, MDA2, the DLR and DEX 2009 give it;^[3][4][2][5] DELR adds Italian evidente, which Tiktin names alone.^[3][6] Wiktionary takes it from French, itself a learned loan from Latin.^[1]

The adjective is formed from Latin ex- + videō (“to see”), on the participle of the passive videor (“to appear”).^[3][7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Paul Iorgovici proposed evidente in 1799, in a list of new words in his Observații de limba rumânească; the form evident is next recorded in Eftimie Murgu in 1834–1835.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Iorgovici's list of 1799 also proposed the noun evidenție, the later evidență.^[3] Costinescu (1870) explains the adjective by învederat and curat “plain, clear”.^[8] Besides the adjective, the word is often used as an adverb, “of course, clearly”.^[5][4] Its family grew in the 19th and 20th centuries: evidenția “to highlight” about 1865, neevident in 1869, evidențiabil in 1935 and evidențiator in 1940, the last later also a “highlighter” after English.^[3]

Timeline

• 1799 – evidente and evidenție proposed by Iorgovici, the first record.^[3][4]
• c. 1832 – evidență in Iordache Golescu.^[3]
• 1834–1835 – the form evident in Eftimie Murgu.^[3]
• c. 1865 – the verb evidenția in Maiorescu.^[3]
• 1869 – neevident “not evident”.^[3]
• 1940 – evidențiator.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Easily perceived; clear, obvious.^[4][5][1]
2. So clear that it needs no proof; beyond doubt, undeniable.^[5][4]

Adverb

1. Certainly, of course; clearly, without doubt: Evident, a venit și el. “Of course he came too.”^[4][9]

Word family

• evidență
• evidenția
• neevident

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. evident
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. evident
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 847
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 366
6. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. evident
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 401
9. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. evident