garanta

Forms

garanta (third-person singular present garantează, past participle garantat), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French garantir (“to guarantee”), the source DEX, DILF, NODEX and MDN name.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Tiktin names Italian garantire beside the French verb as a second source, and the DN compares both.^[6][7] MDA2 gives the French verb in the form garanter.^[8]

The French verb, recorded from 1080, is derived from garant (“guarantor”), originally the present participle of Old French garir, which comes from Frankish *warjan (“to declare true”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1848.^[6] MDA2's first record is Ion Ionescu's book on the agriculture of Mehedinți county (1868), with the financial sense of standing surety for another's debt among its senses.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The verb started in law and finance, “to answer with one's property for another's debt”, and widened to “to assure someone that they will have something”, “to vouch for the value or quality of a thing” and “to vouch for someone's conduct”.^[8][2] Șăineanu's dictionary of 1929 already lists the three uses of standing guarantor, vouching for the quality of an object, and certifying that a fact is true.^[10] The commercial sense of a warranty, a promise to keep a sold appliance working for a set time, is the newest one in DEX.^[2] Tiktin records an obsolete variant garantiza.^[6]

Timeline

• 1080 – French guarantir, the source verb.^[9]
• 1848 – the first Romanian record in Tiktin.^[6]
• 1868 – in Ion Ionescu's book on Mehedinți agriculture, MDA2's first record.^[8]
• 1875 – Antonescu's dictionary glosses it with French garantir.^[11]
• 1893–1895 – Damé glosses it “to guarantee, give a pledge”.^[12]
• 1931 – CADE lists standing surety, vouching for the quality of goods, and certifying.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To guarantee, assure: to give someone the certainty that they will have something; to answer for the value or quality of a thing.^[2][5][1]
2. To undertake to keep a sold appliance or machine working for a set time (warranty).^[2][8]
3. To answer for someone's conduct; to give assurances that something will happen.^[2][14]
4. (intransitive) To stand surety for another's debt, answering for it with one's property; synonym chezășui.^[2][7]

Related words

• garant
• garanție

Usage notes

Pontbriant (1862) and Antonescu (1875) list an unrelated obsolete noun garanta “guarantee”, which Pontbriant compares with Italian garanzia.^[15][11]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 426
3. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. garanta
4. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. garanta
5. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. garanta
6. ^ 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. garanta
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. garanta
8. ^ 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, 964
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 268
11. ^ a b Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 110
12. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. garanta
13. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. garanta
14. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 355
15. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 280