excelent

Forms

excelent m or n (feminine singular excelentă, masculine plural excelenți, feminine/neuter plural excelente)^[1] The oldest record has exțelenț: „mai cuvârșitoriu exțelenț și desăvârșit se va arăta” “he will show himself more accomplished, excellent and perfect” (Țichindeal).^[2][3] In the 19th century it was often spelled escelent or escelinte: „Vacina... a fost un escelent antidot” “the vaccine was an excellent antidote” (Heliade).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French excellent and Latin excellēns, the double source that DELR, DEX, MDA2 and the neologism dictionaries give.^{[3][4][5][6][1]} Scriban names only the Latin word.^[7] The DLR takes the old variant exțelenț from German exzellent.^[2]

The Latin adjective is the present participle of excellō (“to stand out, surpass”).^[8][1] The verb is formed with ex- on a verb not attested by itself, whose past participle survives in celsus (“high, lofty”).^[9][3] French took the word from Latin in the 12th century.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is from 1808, in Țichindeal, in the form exțelenț “excellent, outstanding”.^[3][2] The title excelentisim is older, from 1759, and the noun excelență older still, from 1737.^[3]

Semantic evolution

For most of the 19th century the word wavered in form: the DLR quotes escelent from Heliade, escelinte from Laurian and Filimon and escelantă from a periodical of 1859, while Eminescu still wrote escelent.^[2][3] The spelling excelent appears in Maiorescu and Caragiale and became the norm.^[2]

The sense has stayed “of outstanding quality”, said of people and things alike.^[2][4] It is often used as an adverb, and MDA2 records an old use as a word of reverence beside titles.^[5]

Timeline

• 1737 – the related noun excelență, as ecțelenție.^[3]
• 1759 – the title excelentisim, as ecselentisum.^[3]
• 1808 – exțelenț in Țichindeal, the first record of the adjective.^[3]
• 1838 – the verb excela, in Heliade.^[3]
• 1859 – escelantă, of the quality of oak wood, in the periodical Isis.^[2]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary has excelentŭ, with French excellent.^[10]
• 1931 – the CADE defines it as “very good” and derives it from French.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. excellent, outstanding, of very high quality.^[4][5][1]
2. (obsolete) Used with titles as a word of reverence: glorious, illustrious.^[5]

Adverb

1. excellently, very well.^[5][7]

Related words

• excela
• excelență
• Latin excellēns

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. excelent
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. excela
4. ^ a b c 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 Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 851
6. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. excelent
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 480
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 404
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. excelent