oricât

Forms

oricât, feminine oricâtă, plural oricâți, oricâte^[2]

Etymology

It is a compound from Romanian ori + cât: the conjunction “or”, used before question words in the sense “any”, and the interrogative “how much”.^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary takes this first element as a variant of oare.^[1] The second element, cât, is inherited from Latin quantus (“how great, how much”), influenced by quotus (“how many”).^[5][1] The same pattern gives oricine, orice and oricum.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is the Moldavian law code of Vasile Lupu, the Pravila printed at Iași in 1646 (Carte românească de învățătură), quoted from its 1912 edition.^[3] There it is a pronoun: „Oricâți vor fi într-acel svat, nime nice o certare nu va avea” “however many are in that council, none shall be punished”.^[4] The same code also has the adverb in „ca să nu să cearte oricât de puțin” “so that they do not quarrel even a little”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The pronoun “however many, any number of” and the adverb “however much” have both been in use since the first records.^[4] The adverb often works as a concessive conjunction before a verb: oricât aș voi “however much I might wish”, as in Negruzzi, or oricât îl durea “however much it hurt him”, as in Creangă.^[4][6] The adjectival use, before a noun, is recorded from Negruzzi and Caragiale.^[4]

Timeline

• 1646 – oricâți and oricât de puțin in the Moldavian Pravila.^[3][4]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible.^[7]
• 1693 – oricâte “however many things” in a document.^[4]
• 1801 – listed as Ori-caet in Klein's dictionary.^[8]
• 1832 – oricât de mare in the newspaper Curierul românesc.^[4]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. However many, however much; any number or quantity at all; also used before a noun: Oricâte cărți ar citi, tot nu se satură.^[2][3][6]

Adverb

1. As much as one likes, no matter how much: Poți rămâne oricât.^[2][6]
2. No matter how much or how hard, often as a concessive conjunction: Oricât ar munci, nu se îmbogățește.^[2][3][4]

Related words

• cât
• ori
• oricine
• orice
• oarecât

Usage notes

MDA2 and DLR also list an oricât that is a variant of oarecât “some, a certain amount”.^[3][4] Split by a preposition, ori de câte ori means “whenever, every time”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 751
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 225
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. oricât
5. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. cât
6. ^ a b c d Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 284
7. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Deut 15:8
8. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 410