pozitiv

Forms

pozitiv m or n (feminine singular pozitivă, masculine plural pozitivi, feminine/neuter plural pozitive)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French positif, with Latin positīvus and German positiv as further models, the three sources that MDA2 and the DLR give.^[2][3] DEX 2009, NODEX and Wiktionary name the French and the Latin word.^[4][1] Tiktin takes it from New Latin, perhaps through another language, and Scriban from Latin alone.^[5][6]

The Latin adjective is formed on pōnō (“to put, place”) with the suffix -īvus and first meant “arbitrarily laid down”, as opposed to natural.^[7][8] French borrowed it around 1278; the sense “certain, evident” spread there only in the 17th century.^[9] German took it from French as well as Late Latin.^[10][11] Pfeifer dates the mathematical sense “greater than zero” to around 1700.^[11] Graur lists the Romanian word among the descendants of the Latin verb, beside pune.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to 1817, Gheorghe Asachi's Alghebra, the first algebra written in Romanian;^[2][5] Tiktin gives about 1818 for the same author.^[2][5] The sense there is the mathematical one: quantities that follow the plus sign are called cătimi pozetive “positive quantities”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word entered Romanian through mathematics, where 19th-century textbooks used it of terms preceded by “+” and also called the plus sign itself pozitiv.^[3] In the 1840s it appears in the general sense “founded on facts, certain”: newspapers asked for pozitive științe “definite information”.^[3] Negulici's vocabulary of 1848 glosses it “sure, evident”.^[13] Legal drept pozitiv “positive law”, written law as opposed to natural law, and religie pozitivă followed.^[3][14]

From the facts the sense passed to people: a om pozitiv is a realistic, practical man.^[6][3] Physics brought positive electricity and the positive pole, photography the pozitiv as a print made from a negative, and grammar the positive degree of the adjective.^[6][15] In the 20th century it came to mean “valuable, worth following” and, in medicine, a test that confirms an infection.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 1817 – pozetiv in Asachi's Alghebra, of numbers greater than zero.^[2][3]
• 1840s – the sense “certain, factual” in newspapers.^[3]
• 1848 – positiv “sure, evident” in Negulici's vocabulary.^[13]
• 1939 – Scriban records the photographic pozitiv and the grammatical degree.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Based on experience, facts or reality; by extension certain, real, true;^[15][2] științe pozitive “the experimental sciences”.^[15][2]
2. Valuable, worth following; constructive: o experiență pozitivă “a good experience”.^[15][1]
3. Of people: realistic, practical.^[15][17]
4. (mathematics) Greater than (or equal to) zero, written with the plus sign;^[15][2] temperatură pozitivă “a temperature above zero”.^[15][2]
5. (physics) Of an electric charge: of the same kind as that of atomic nuclei; of a pole or terminal: through which the current leaves the source, or connected to it.^[15][2]
6. (medicine) Of a test: confirming the presence of a pathogen.^[15]
7. (logic) Affirming something rather than denying it.^[15]
8. (law) drept pozitiv: the written law of a state, a period or a country.^[2][3]

Noun

1. (photography) A positive: a print made from a negative, with light and shade as in reality.^[4][15]
2. (grammar) The positive degree of an adjective or adverb, its form without comparison.^[15][6]

Related words

• pozitivitate
• negativ
• pune
• Latin positīvus

References

1. ^ a b c 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. 2, 495
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pozitiv
4. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. pozitiv
5. ^ 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. pozitiv
6. ^ a b c d e Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1029
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
11. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
12. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 91
13. ^ 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. positiv
14. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 502
15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 858
16. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 526
17. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. pozitiv