prietenă

Forms

prietenă f (plural prietene, masculine equivalent prieten)^[1]

Etymology

It is the feminine formed from Romanian prieten + -ă, on the word for “friend”.^[1][2] DER lists it among the derivatives of the masculine, and DEX, MDA2 and DLR treat the two genders in one entry.^[2][3][4][5]

Prieten itself is from Old Church Slavonic приꙗтель (prijatelĭ) in DEX, DER, Tiktin and Wiktionary.^[3][2][6][1] MDA2 and DLR take the form with ⟨n⟩ from Bulgarian приятен (prijaten).^[4][5] DER explains the ⟨n⟩ by confusion with a Slavonic adjective meaning “pleasant”, Tiktin by analogy with ieftin.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin quotes the feminine from Constantin Negruzzi, where Zoe speaks to Sanda, her nurse and her only friend, „singura sa prietenă”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Besides “female friend”, the word has the sense “girlfriend, sweetheart”, which DLR and DEX give for both genders of prieten.^[5][3] DLR quotes it in that sense from Călinescu: „Tu n-ai nici o prietenă?” “Haven't you got a girlfriend?”.^[5] Tiktin records the Moldavian masculine prietin, and Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 gives the feminine as prietenă or prietină.^[6][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A (female) friend: a woman or girl to whom someone is bound by affection or by shared ideas; the same as amică.^[3][1]
2. A girlfriend, a sweetheart; a lover.^[3][4][1]

Related words

• prieten
• prietenie
• amică

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. prieten
3. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 874
4. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 536
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. prieten
6. ^ 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. prieten
7. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 354