incident

Forms

incident m or n (feminine singular incidentă, masculine plural incidenți, feminine/neuter plural incidente)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French incident.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} NODEX also names Latin incidēns, and Tiktin derives the word from that Latin form alone.^[6][7] The French word is a learned borrowing of the late 13th century from that Latin form, the present participle of incidō (“to fall into, to happen”), formed on cadō (“to fall”).^[8][9] The DA compares the semantic model of German Zufall.^[10] The verb for “to fall” survives in Romanian as the inherited cădea, and accident is a borrowing from the same family.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the word to 1821; he records the adjective in propoziție incidentă “parenthetical clause” and the noun “incident”, with the old spellings incidente and incedent.^[7] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 defines the noun as an event that comes about in the course of some work or undertaking, and the optical adjective as falling on a surface.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The 19th-century dictionaries record the senses of French: an episode set into the main action of a drama, an epic or a novel (Hasdeu), a side issue raised in a trial or a debate (Maiorescu), and the grammatical and optical adjective.^[10][12] Today the noun usually means an unexpected and unpleasant event, as in incident de frontieră “border clash”, and figuratively a difficulty.^[2][3] In law a ridica un incident is to raise a secondary objection in order to hold up a trial.^[3][13]

Timeline

• 1821 – the first record.^[7]
• 1848 – Negulici defines the noun and the optical adjective.^[11]
• 1870 – Costinescu adds the grammatical sense “clause set into a sentence”.^[12]
• 1886 – Barcianu glosses it with German Nebenumstand, Zufall and Zwischensatz.^[14]
• 1931 – CADE records the legal phrase a ridica un incident.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. An incident: an unexpected, usually unpleasant event in the course of an activity;^[3] incident de frontieră “border clash” between the guards of two neighbouring states.^[2][3]
2. (figurative) A difficulty or hitch.^[2][4]
3. (law) A secondary, unexpected objection raised by one of the parties during a trial.^[2][3]
4. (literature) An episode set into the main action of a drama, an epic or a novel.^[3][10]

Adjective

1. (grammar, of words or clauses) parenthetical: set between the parts of a clause or sentence.^[2][1]
2. (physics) rază incidentă “incident ray”: a ray of light falling on the surface of a body or on the boundary between two media.^[2][3]

Related words

• incidental
• incidență
• accident
• cădea

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. 498
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1124
4. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. incident
7. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. incident
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 24
10. ^ a b c 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. incident
11. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. 209
12. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 536
13. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. incident
14. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 276