portret

Forms

portret n (plural portrete)^[1] The old plural is portreturi: „Ați făcut niște frumoase portreturi despre soțiile dv.” “you have drawn some fine portraits of your wives” (Costache Negruzzi).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French portrait.^{[4][5][6][2][1]} MDA2 also compares Russian портрет (portret), and the DLR explains the variant patret through it.^[5][7] Scriban explains the popular potret and that variant through a Ruthenian form.^[8] Tiktin's first record is from the prints that Vascenco (1958) studied for their Russian influence.^[2]

The French word, first spelled portret around 1175, is the past participle, used as a noun, of Old French portraire (“to draw, depict”), formed with pour as an intensive prefix and traire in its old sense “to draw”.^[9] Wiktionary traces the Old French verb to Latin prōtrahō.^[1] Scriban notes that the French verb corresponds to the native verb trage.^[8] In Bulgarian too, Bulgarian портрет (portret) is from French, partly through Russian.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1789.^[2] MDA2's first record is Grigore Pleșoianu's primer for children (1828), where the plural portreturi stands beside icons: „portreturi ș-alte lucruri destul de frumoase” “portraits and other quite beautiful things”.^[5][7]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is a painted, drawn or carved image of a person, or a photograph; the old word was obraz.^[7][5] The sense “description of a person's appearance or character in a book” is in Negruzzi and Alecsandri, and Tiktin glosses it “character sketch”.^[2][3] Figuratively a person can be “the portrait” of a relative he looks exactly like.^[8][11][5]

In the 1970s the press took up portret-robot “identikit picture of a wanted person”, and portret-cadru “outline portrait used to identify someone”.^[12] Criminology also has portret-vorbit, identification from the description of witnesses.^[6]

Timeline

• 1789 – the first record that Tiktin gives.^[2]
• 1828 – portreturi in Pleșoianu's primer.^[5][7]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary defines it and gives the sense “perfect likeness”.^[13]
• 1977 – portret-robot in the newspaper România liberă.^[12]
• 1978 – portret-cadru.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A portrait: a painting, drawing, sculpture or photograph showing a person's face or figure.^[6][5]
2. portret-robot: an identikit drawing of a person made from the account of victims or witnesses.^[6][14]
3. portret-vorbit: identification of an offender from the description given by victims or witnesses.^[6][5]
4. A description of a character's appearance and moral traits in a literary work; a work of this kind.^[6]
5. (rare) A person who looks exactly like another, usually a relative.^[5][8]

Word family

• portretist
• portretiza

Related words

• trage
• obraz
• French portrait

Usage notes

MDA2 lists popular and regional variants: potret, patret, putret and potrit.^[5] The plural portreturi is old.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. portret
3. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 508
4. ^ 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. portret
5. ^ 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. 2, 476
6. ^ 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. 852
7. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. portret
8. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1020
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 5, 533
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 498
12. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. portret
13. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 322
14. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)