nega

Forms

nega (third-person singular present neagă, past participle negat, third-person subjunctive nege) 1st conjugation^[1] Petru Maior spelled it niega and explained it with the native word: „Nici însuși Engel nu poate niega (tăgădui)” “not even Engel can deny (it)”.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin negō (“to say no, deny”), a learned borrowing of the 19th century.^{[3][4][5][6][1]} The Latin verb lives on in the other Romance languages as Italian negare, French nier and Spanish negar.^[7] Romanian later took negație and negativ, from French.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Petru Maior's history of 1812, where the new verb is glossed with the native tăgădui “deny”.^[6][2] MDA2 cites the same work from a later edition.^[4] Negulici's vocabulary of 1848 still explains negare with a tăgădui.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed close to the Latin: to deny that something exists, is true or is necessary, and to refuse to admit a fact.^[2][5] Pontbriant (1862) glosses it with French nier “to say no; to maintain that something is not so”.^[9] It is also used without an object, of shaking one's head in denial, and in the passive in logic: a predicate is affirmed or denied of a subject.^[2]

Timeline

• 1812 – niega, glossed tăgădui, in Petru Maior's history, the first record.^[6][2]
• 1848 – negare “to deny” in Negulici's vocabulary of new words.^[8]
• 1862 – nega “to deny, say no” in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[9]
• 1869 – Barițiu gives nega for Hungarian tagad.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To deny: to dispute that something exists or is true or necessary; to refuse to admit a fact: Acuzatul a negat totul în fața judecătorului.^[5][4]
2. (intransitive) To deny, to say no.^[2][11]

Related words

• negativ
• negație
• tăgădui
• Latin negō

Usage notes

The stem vowel alternates: eu neg, but el neagă and să nege.^[12][1]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. nega
3. ^ a b 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. nega
4. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 125
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 702
6. ^ 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. negá
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. negāre
8. ^ 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. negare
9. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 472
10. ^ Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 543
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 186
12. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. nega