făt

Forms

făt m (plural feți)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fētus (“offspring, young”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} It survives in Aromanian fet and Istro-Romanian fet.^[2][7][8] Ciorănescu compares Sardinian fedu and Occitan fedoun “lamb”.^[2] The feminine fată “girl” and the verb făta “to give birth (of animals)” belong to the same Latin family.^[2][9]

The Latin word, a participle meaning “having given birth”, comes from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)- (“to suckle”).^[10][1] Romanian also has the learned doublet fetus.^[1][11]

Graur argued that the sense “young of an animal” does not continue the Latin word but is a back-formation from the verb, made in Romanian.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to a document of 1434.^[3] In the early 16th-century Psaltirea Hurmuzaki the form is fătul.^[13] MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578).^[4] In the old chronicles it means “son, boy”: Nicolae Costin writes of „feciori, feți și fete” “children, boys and girls” and of „trei feți ai lui” “three of his sons”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the old language făt meant “boy, son”, the masculine of fată “girl”, in place of Latin puer.^[12][3] Graur thought it fell out of this use because it clashed with făt “young of an animal”: it took a pejorative tone, while fată kept its old sense.^[12] Today the sense survives in set phrases: fătul meu “my boy”, an old person's friendly way of addressing a young one, and the fairy-tale names Făt-Frumos and Făt-logofăt.^[5][2][3]

The modern standard sense is medical, the foetus in the womb.^[5][4] In Transylvania the word also names the church sexton.^[2][4][14]

Timeline

• 1434 – the first record, in a document.^[3]
• c. 1500–1520 – fătul in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[13]
• c. 1573–1578 – făt in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4]
• 1649 – the vocative fătule in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic чадо “child”.^[15]
• 1825 – fẻtu besericei “church sexton” in the Lexicon of Buda.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A foetus: the unborn young of a mammal from the time it moves and has the form of its species until birth.^[5][4]
2. (popular, poetic) A son, boy, child: fătul meu “my boy”, said kindly by an old person to a young one.^[5][4]
3. The newborn young of an animal.^[4][2]
4. (regional, Transylvania) A church sexton.^[4][2]

Word family

• Făt-Frumos

Related words

• fată
• făta
• fecior
• fetus

Usage notes

Făt-Frumos is the hero of Romanian fairy tales, and by extension a strikingly handsome young man;^[5][4] Făt-logofăt is a child with marvellous gifts.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. făt
3. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. făt
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, 886
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 384
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3273
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 455
8. ^ Popovici, Iosif (1909), Dialectele romîne din Istria II: texte și glosar, Halle a. S., p. 109
9. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 50
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. fētus
11. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 103
12. ^ a b c Graur, Alexandru (1963), Etimologii romînești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. făt
13. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 68:21
14. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 217
15. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. fătule