gint

Forms

gint n (plural ginturi)^[1] The old plural is ginture: the Psaltirea Scheiană has „în toate ginturele și ginture” “through all generations”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gēns (“race, nation, people”), from its accusative gentem.^[4][3][2][1] Wiktionary posits a Vulgar Latin *gentum, with a change of declension that made the word neuter.^[1] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis, from *ǵenh₁- (“to beget”).^[1][5]

Aromanian has ghimtã, which the REW takes from Albanian gjint.^[4][6] The Romance cognates include Italian gente, French gent, Spanish gente and Dalmatian ziant.^[4][1] The word is a doublet of gintă (race, people), a Latinism of the 19th century.^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the sense “multitude, crowd”: „Totu gintulu cade-se a se adura” “the whole crowd must gather”.^[3][2] The New Testament of 1645 has mulțimea in its place.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th-century texts the word renders Old Church Slavonic родъ (rodŭ) “generation, kin”: the Psaltirea Scheiană has „în gintu și în gintu” “from generation to generation”, where Coresi's psalter has „în rudă și în rudă”.^[2] The Cuvente den bătrâni speak of the „gintu omenescu” “human race”.^[2] The word was later replaced by rudă and neam.^[2]

It is now obsolete.^[3][1] In the 19th century the Latinist gintă took its place in the literary language, in phrases like gintă latină “Latin race” in Alecsandri.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – gintul “the crowd” in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.^[3][2]
• c. 1573–1578 – gintu and the plural ginture “generations” in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[2]
• 1645 – the New Testament replaces it with mulțime.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (obsolete) kin, lineage, generation.^[3][2]
2. (obsolete) A people, a nation; a multitude.^[3][2][1]

Related words

• gintă
• Latin gēns

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. gint
3. ^ 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, 998
4. ^ a b c d 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. gint
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3735