evita

Forms

evita (present evit, third-person singular evită, past participle evitat, subjunctive să evite), first conjugation^[1][2] An older present evitez is also recorded.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French éviter (“to avoid”) and Latin ēvītō (“to avoid, shun”).^[2][3] DELR adds Italian evitare as a third possible source.^[4] DLR takes it from French and only compares the Latin and Italian verbs.^[5]

The Latin verb is formed from ē- (“out”) and vītō (“to avoid”),^[4][6] whose own origin is unclear.^[6] The French verb is borrowed from Latin, first recorded in 1324.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is the verbal noun evitare in Săulescu's grammar of 1834; the verb itself follows in 1839, in Barițiu's Romanian–German grammar.^[4][3] Its first sense is “to keep away from something harmful or unpleasant”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The DLR's early quotations come from Laurian, the periodicals of the 1860s and Ghica.^[5] Beside “to shun, keep away from”, it came to mean “to prevent, ward off” something unwanted, and of people “to avoid meeting”.^[2][3] Sailors also use it for a ship at anchor swinging round with its bow into the wind or the current, as French sailors do.^[4][7][6]

A family of learned words followed: inevitabil (1846), evitabil (1862), inevitabilitate (1867) and, in psychology, evitant (1971), partly after English avoidant.^[4]

Timeline

• 1834 – the noun evitare in Săulescu's grammar.^[4]
• 1839 – the verb in Barițiu's Romanian–German grammar.^[4][3]
• 1839 – evitație “avoidance”.^[4]
• 1846 – inevitabil in Laurian.^[4]
• 1862 – evitabil.^[4]
• 1867 – inevitabilitate.^[4]
• 1943 – evitabilitate.^[4]
• 1971 – evitant in psychology.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To avoid, to keep away from something unpleasant or harmful; to steer clear of someone.^[2][3]
2. To prevent, ward off: Un control la timp evită multe necazuri. “A timely check prevents many troubles.”^[2][3]
3. (nautical) Of a ship at anchor, to swing round with the bow into the wind or the current.^[3][7]

Word family

• evitabil
• evitabilitate
• evitație
• inevitabil
• inevitabilitate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 366
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 847
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. evita
5. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. evita
6. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. evita