pacient

Forms

pacient m (plural pacienți, feminine equivalent pacientă)^[1] The 19th-century form pațient is in Cuciuran's description of hospitals (1842): „Grija lui este mai departe de a ține jurnalul boalei fieșcărui pațient” “his further care is to keep the record of each patient's illness”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin patiēns (“enduring, suffering”), with French patient, German Patient and Italian paciente as further models, as DEX and MDN give it.^[4][5][1] MDA2 and the DLR name the Latin, French and German words, DN the Latin word compared with the others.^[3][2][6] MDA2 and Tiktin give the Latin word in the spelling paciens, which the Romanian form follows;^[3][7] Tiktin takes it from New Latin, partly through other languages.^[3][7]

The Latin word is the present participle of patior (“to suffer, endure”).^[8][9] German used it for a person under medical treatment from the first half of the 16th century, first in medical writings.^[10] Graur puts it in one family with the inherited verb păți and the neologisms pasiune, pasiv and compasiune.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is of 1826.^[7] MDA2 and the DLR begin with Cuciuran's description of hospitals in Germany, England and France (1842), in the form pațient and in the medical sense.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Beside the medical sense, the 19th century used it for a person put to torture: Negruzzi calls the man the executioner strangles a pațient.^[12] Barcianu (1886) gives both the adjective “patient, long-suffering” and the noun “sufferer, sick person”.^[13] The adjective, which DLRLC calls a Gallicism, survives in literary style.^[12][4]

Timeline

• 1826 – the first record.^[7]
• 1842 – pațient “patient” in Cuciuran's description of hospitals.^[3][2]
• 1886 – Barcianu gives the adjective and the noun.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A patient: a sick person under a doctor's care, seen in relation to the doctor.^[4][1]
2. (dated) A person put to torture, a victim or martyr.^[4][12]

Adjective

1. (literary) Patient, calm, răbdător.^[4][14]

Word family

• pacientă

Related words

• păți
• pasiune

Usage notes

DLRLC treats the adjective and the noun as two headwords, pacient¹ “patient, calm” and pacient² “sick person”.^[12] It is pronounced with a hiatus, pa-ci-ent.^[4] MDA2 records the old variants paciinte, pațient and pațiente.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pacient
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. 2, 244
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 761
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. pacient
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. pacient
7. ^ 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. pacient
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. patiens
9. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
10. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
11. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. no. 167
12. ^ 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, 301
13. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 449
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. pacient