examina

Forms

examina (present examinez, past participle examinat), first conjugation; pronounced with /gz/.^[1][2] Older texts have the variants esamina, ezamina and examena, and the rare verbs examenui (once, in Budai-Deleanu), examinălui and examinelui.^[3][4] A rare present examin is recorded beside examinez.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin exāminō (“to weigh, examine”), also borrowed from French examiner: DELR and the DLR name the Latin verb first, while MDA2, DEX and the neologism dictionaries put French first.^{[3][5][4][1][6]} Tiktin also names the Latin of the neologisms and French.^[7] The DLRM gives French as the source, with the literary Latin word behind it.^[8]

The French verb is a learned borrowing from the same Latin verb.^[2] The Latin verb is formed on exāmen, whose sense “tongue of a balance” led to “weighing, examination”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1785.^[3][7] The text is a school manual, and the sense is testing pupils: „în scurtă vreme toț s-ar pute examina” “in a short time all could be examined”.^[5] MDA2's first record is Naum Petrovici's pedagogy of 1818: „eu numai cât o examinai (cercai) una oară” “I examined it (tested it) only once”, glossing the new word with the native cerca.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The school sense, putting a pupil or candidate to an examination, came first, and in the old legal language the verb also meant to question an accused person.^[5][4] The general sense, to study something or someone closely, includes medical use for examining a patient.^[5] A further sense is simply to look at someone or something insistently.^[4]

The family came in at the same time: examinație in 1822, examinator in 1833 (spelled eczaminator), both from French or Latin;^[3] neexaminabil (1909) and examinabil (1923) are later.^[3]

Timeline

• 1785 – the first record, of testing pupils.^[3][7][5]
• 1818 – Naum Petrovici's pedagogy, glossed with cerca.^[4][5]
• 1822 – examinație “examination”, in Bobb's dictionary.^[3]
• 1833 – examinator, spelled eczaminator.^[3]
• 1909 – neexaminabil “that cannot be examined”.^[3]
• 1923 – examinabil.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To examine, to study someone or something closely; of a doctor, to examine a patient in order to make a diagnosis.^[1][4]
2. To put a pupil, student or candidate through an examination or test; to question.^[1]
3. To look at someone or something insistently.^[4]
4. (obsolete) To interrogate an accused person.^[4][5]

Word family

• examinare
• examinator
• reexamina

Related words

• examen
• French examiner
• Latin exāminō

Usage notes

A-și examina conștiința means “to examine one's conscience”, to look closely at one's own conduct.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 367
2. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. examen
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 850
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. examina
6. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. examina
7. ^ 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. examina
8. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. examina
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert