merita

Forms

merita (third-person singular present merită, past participle meritat, third-person subjunctive merite) 1st conjugation^[1] The present was once also conjugated with -ez (meritez): a newspaper of 1832 has „Tinerimea... meritează încurajare” “the young people deserve encouragement”.^[2][3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written мерита.^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French mériter (“to deserve”), a neologism of the early 19th century, as DEX, the DLR, MDA2 and NODEX give it.^{[4][3][2][5][1]} Tiktin writes that it was formed after the French verb.^[6] The neologism dictionaries name several sources: DN gives French, Italian meritare and Latin meritare, MDN French and Latin.^[7][8] Pontbriant in 1862 already set the Latin verb beside it.^[9]

The French verb is formed from mérite (“merit”) or borrowed from the Latin verb (“to earn, deserve”), which comes from meritus; it replaced the inherited Old French merir.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1825.^[6] The DLR's earliest quotation is from Iancu Văcărescu's translation of Racine's Britannicus, in a manuscript of 1827: „Nu crez c-or merita Asemenea simțiri” “I do not think they will deserve such feelings”.^[3][2] MDA2's year 1669 is that of Racine's play, not of the translation.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was transitive, “to be worthy of a reward or a punishment for one's deeds”, and it was common in the press of the 1830s.^[3][2] Negulici's dictionary of neologisms of 1848 still lists it, under the Latinist form meritare.^[10] It took the place of the older meritarisi, which the dictionaries now label obsolete.^[6][4]

From “to deserve” came “to justify the esteem, interest or care given to something”, and the intransitive “to be worth it” (merită “it is worth it”).^[4][2][1] Of goods, it came to mean “to be worth the price asked”.^[4][8]

Timeline

• 1825 – first record, after Tiktin.^[6]
• 1827 – merita in Iancu Văcărescu's manuscript translation of Britannicus.^[3][2]
• 1832 – meritează, with the -ez present, in the press.^[3]
• 1848 – meritare among the neologisms in Negulici's dictionary.^[10]
• 1862 – Pontbriant glosses it with French mériter and valoir.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To deserve or merit something, good or bad, because of one's deeds: Echipa a meritat victoria.^[4][2][1]
2. (transitive) To justify the esteem, interest or care given to it: Cartea merită citită.^[4][2]
3. (intransitive) To be worth it: Nu merită să te superi.^[2][1]
4. (of goods) To be worth the price asked.^[4][8]

Related words

• merit

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 Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1491
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. merita
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. 642
5. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. merita
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. merita
7. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. merita
8. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. merita
9. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 433
10. ^ 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. s.v. meritare