exact

Forms

exact m or n (feminine singular exactă, masculine plural exacți, feminine/neuter plural exacte)^[1] The 19th century also wrote esact: „numai atunci pot să-și facă o idee esactă despre tot” “only then can they form an exact idea of the whole” (Laurian).^[2] DELR lists the old variants esact and ezact.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French exact, partly borrowed from Latin exāctus (“precise, exact”), the two sources that DEX, MDA2, DELR and the DLR give together.^[4][5][3][2] Tiktin and Wiktionary name only French, Scriban only Latin.^[6][1][7] The pronunciation with /ɡz/ follows French.^[7]

The Latin adjective is the past participle of exigō (“to drive out; to demand; to weigh, measure; to complete”), formed from ex- and agō (“to drive, to act”).^[3][8] French borrowed it as a learned word in the middle of the 16th century.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1736, in a document published by Stinghe, with the sense “exact, accurate”.^[6] DELR dates the word to 1832, in Heliade's translation of Francoeur's arithmetic, which is also MDA2's first record.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The 19th-century senses were those of French: true to reality, faithful to a model, precise in measurement, and of people, careful and punctual.^[3][10] Științe exacte “exact sciences” are those whose results can be stated mathematically.^[4] As an adverb it also came to mean “just, precisely”.^[4][5]

The family grew in the same decades: exactitate in 1836, exacteță in 1838 (after Italian esattezza), exactitudine in 1846 and exactamente in 1857.^[3]

Timeline

• 1736 – the first record.^[6]
• 1832 – in Heliade's arithmetic, “exact”.^[3][5]
• 1836 – exactitate “exactness”.^[3]
• 1838 – exacteță, in Asachi.^[3]
• 1846 – exactitudine, in Laurian.^[3]
• 1857 – exactamente “exactly”.^[3]
• 1870 – Costinescu glosses it “regular, punctual, without error”.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. In full agreement with reality, accurate, true: o informație exactă.^[4] Științe exacte are the sciences whose results can be put in mathematical form; of a copy, faithful to its model.^[4][5]
2. punctual: E foarte exact la întâlniri.^[4]

Adverb

1. In agreement with reality; exactly, just, precisely: Costă exact zece lei.^[4][5]
2. On time, punctually; without deviation from a schedule.^[4]

Word family

• exacteță
• exactitate
• exactitudine
• inexact
• inexactitate
• exactamente

Related words

• French exact
• Latin exāctus

References

1. ^ a b c 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. exact
3. ^ 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. exact
4. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 367
5. ^ 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, 849
6. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. exact
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 479
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. exactus
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. exact
10. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 402