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gândire

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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word gândire

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1500s a 16th-century text printed in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni More words from the 15th century
Ultimate origin
Hungarian gond
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Romanian gând
Romanian gândi
Romanian gândire
From the same root
Romanian răzgândi ← gândi

Pronunciation

  • /ɡɨnˈdi.re/[1]

Forms

gândire f (plural gândiri)[1]

Etymology

It is from Romanian gândi + -re, the long infinitive of the verb used as a noun.[2][3][1][4] The verb is formed on gând “thought”, which Ciorănescu, MDA2 and Wiktionary trace to Hungarian gond.[1][5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1550, in a text printed in the second volume of Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni.[3] In the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons of the 1660s and 1670s the word glosses Slavonic words for “thought”, “intention” and “consent”.[6] MDA2 takes its first record from Dosoftei's Lives of the Saints (Iași, 1682–1686).[2]

Semantic evolution

From the start the noun named both the act of thinking and its result, a thought or an idea.[3][2] Dosoftei also has the negative negândire “thoughtlessness”.[3] Klein's dictionary of 1801 and the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 gave Latin cogitatio as its equivalent.[7][8]

In the 19th century the poets used it for reflection and reverie, as in Eminescu's „gândirea ei ușoară” “her light thoughts”.[3][9] The modern dictionaries put first the mind's higher faculty of knowing the world through concepts and judgements, a sense the 1955 DLRLC defined in the terms of Marxist philosophy.[4][10] MDA2 adds the senses “outlook, philosophy” and set phrases such as gândire obiectivă “objective thinking”.[2]

Timeline

  • 16th century – first record, in a text Tiktin dates to about 1550.[3]
  • 1660 – in the earliest of the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons that have it.[6]
  • 1682–1686 – in Dosoftei's Lives of the Saints, with negândire.[2][3]
  • 1688 – five times in the Bucharest Bible.[11]
  • 1801 – in Klein's dictionary, with Latin cogitatio.[7]
  • 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. thinking, thought: the higher faculty of the human mind that grasps reality through concepts, judgements and theories.[4][1]
  2. The mind as the reflection of reality: spirit, consciousness.[4][1]
  3. An idea or thought, and the act of dwelling on it: meditation, reflection.[4][1]
  4. imagination, fantasy.[4][1]

Word family

  • negândire

Usage notes

MDA2 lists set phrases such as gândire obiectivă and gândire subiectivă for reasoning that leaves out or includes the thinker's own view, and gândire sănătoasă “sound thinking”.[2] DEX 2009 also has gândire laterală “lateral thinking”.[4]

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 Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 976
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. gândire
  4. ^ 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. 430
  5. ^ 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. gînd
  6. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
  7. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 365
  8. ^ 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. 234
  9. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
  10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 388
  11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition)
Cite this entry

“Gândire.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/g%C3%A2ndire. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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