gândi

Forms

gândi (third-person singular present gândește, past participle gândit) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian gând + -i, from the noun gând “thought”.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The noun is from Hungarian gond (“care, worry”), which is recorded in Hungarian from the 14th century and also meant “thought” in Old Hungarian.^[6][5][7] The DA saw the verb only as related to Hungarian gondol (“to think”), from a word of the same origin as the Hungarian noun.^[8][9] Ciorănescu says that the rare Moldavian verb gândului comes directly from the Hungarian verb.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, which has gîndiră “they thought” several times.^[10][11] Tiktin dates the verb to about 1530;^[4][3] MDA2 cites it first from Dosoftei's lives of the saints (1682–1686).^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense, “to think, reflect”, is used without an object, with la “of, about”, or reflexively: mă gândesc “I am thinking”.^[4][2] In the old language of Moldavia, Banat and southern Transylvania it also meant “to care, to mind” (puțin gîndesc “they care little”, Varlaam), a sense that DEX still lists.^[12][2] Other senses are “to believe, suppose” and, reflexively, “to intend”; regionally it can mean “to wish, hope”.^[2][3] The verb passed into the Romani of Romania as gïndisarel.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – gîndiră in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10]
• c. 1551-1558 – in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[11]
• 1649 – gîndesc in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]
• 1682 – in Dosoftei's lives of the saints, MDA2's first record.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To think, to form an idea of something; to reflect, to ponder: Gândește-te bine înainte să răspunzi.^[2][1]
2. To conceive or invent something.^[2][1]
3. (reflexive) To care about, to worry about someone or something.^[2][14]
4. To believe, to suppose (that ...); to realize (that ...).^[2]
5. (reflexive) To intend to do something;^[2][1] (regional) to wish, to hope.^[2][1]

Word family

• gândire
• răzgândi
• gânditor
• îngândura

Usage notes

The phrase a da de gândit means “to give food for thought”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 430
3. ^ 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, 976
4. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. gândi
5. ^ a b c 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. gând
6. ^ Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 386
7. ^ Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 1074
8. ^ Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. gândi
9. ^ Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. gând
10. ^ 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 72:8
11. ^ 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 139:2
12. ^ Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 138
13. ^ 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. gîndesc
14. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 387