pretinde

Forms

pretinde (third-person singular present pretinde, past participle pretins, third-person subjunctive pretindă), 3rd conjugation^[1] Old forms were pretendui, pretenda, pretânda, pretendelui (Cantemir) and pretenderisi.^[2][3] Kogălniceanu wrote „n-am pretendat” “I have not claimed”, and Asachi has pretinda.^[4] Regionally the first person singular is pretinz.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French prétendre (“to claim”), conjugated like întinde.^[5][6][1] The French verb is from Latin praetendō (“to stretch forward; to allege”), formed from Latin prae- + tendō.^[7] Tiktin, MDA2 and the DLR name the Latin verb as a direct source as well, while DEX and the DILF give only the French verb.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Cantemir's Hronicul of 1722, with the sense “to claim, demand”.^[2] In the 19th century the verb is common in the sense “to claim as one's right”: Bălcescu writes that someone „pretindea că … trebuie să stăpânească toată Moldova” “claimed that he must rule all Moldavia”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The first senses were “to claim, demand” and “to assert”.^[2] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 defines it as believing one has a right to something, aspiring to it.^[8] In the reflexive it came to mean “to claim a quality one lacks”, and of things “to call for, require”.^[5][3] The sense “to aspire to” is now rare.^[3]

Timeline

• 1722 – first record, in Cantemir's Hronicul.^[2]
• 1844 – pretenda “to claim” in a Moldavian official bulletin.^[4]
• 1848 – listed in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[8]
• 1862 – Pontbriant glosses it “to claim, to maintain, to aspire to”.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To demand something insistently, as one's right; to lay claim to it (revendica).^[5][3][1]
2. To assert, maintain firmly: Pretinde că n-a fost acolo. “He claims he was not there.”^[5][1]
3. (reflexive) To give oneself out as having a quality one lacks; to think too well of oneself.^[5][3]
4. Of actions or tasks: to require, call for.^[5]
5. (rare) To aspire to.^[3][1]

Word family

• pretins

Related words

• pretenție
• întinde
• tinde
• French prétendre

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. pretinde
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 528
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. pretinde
5. ^ 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. 871
6. ^ a b Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
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. pretindere
9. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 580