procent

Forms

procent n (plural procente)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Prozent (“per cent”), the source that DEX, Marcu and Wiktionary name alone.^[2][3][1] According to DELR, the DLR and Scriban it is also borrowed from Russian процент (procent).^[4][5][6] Tiktin and the DLR also name Latin pro cento (“for each hundred”), the Latin phrase behind both, so that the word has more than one possible source.^[7][5][8]

In German the word goes back to Italian per cento (“for a hundred”), taken into the merchant language of southern Germany in the 15th century; from the early 16th century a Latinised form had prō (“for”) in place of the Italian preposition, and it was written as one word from the 17th.^[9][10] The second part is Latin centum (“hundred”).^[9]

Scriban notes that the word was spelled proțent around 1848, and that the Latinist reaction of the time later restored the spelling with ⟨c⟩.^[6] Regional proțento and obsolete proțănt are recorded as further variants.^[11][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and DELR date the first record to 1785, in Șincai's arithmetic textbook.^[7][4] The DLR quotes an arithmetic book of 1805 which calls the interest of one hundred per year by this name, the sense of “interest per hundred” that MDA2 puts first.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was the interest paid on a hundred units of money over a year, then any interest at all; 19th-century textbooks and newspapers use it for the legal rate of interest.^[5][11] The mathematical sense, a number taken per hundred of a whole, became the main one: DEX puts it first, and MDA2 adds the sign % itself.^[2][11] Caragiale writes of money borrowed at procente orbești, “blind (ruinous) rates of interest”.^[5]

Romanian formed procentual “expressed in per cent” (1813, first as proțentualnic) and procentaj “percentage” (1949), the latter on the model of French pourcentage.^[4]

Timeline

• 1785 – first record, in Șincai's arithmetic textbook.^[7][4]
• 1805 – an arithmetic book uses it for the yearly interest on a hundred.^[5][11]
• 1813 – proțentualnic, the first form of procentual.^[4]
• c. 1848 – the spelling proțent, later replaced by procent.^[6]
• 1949 – procentaj “percentage”.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A per cent: a hundredth part of a given quantity; a proportion reckoned per hundred.^[2][12][1]
2. interest calculated on a hundred units of money for one year; by extension, any interest.^[2][11]
3. The per cent sign, %.^[11]

Word family

• procentaj
• procentual

Related words

• cent
• German Prozent

Usage notes

The variant proțent is obsolete, proțento regional.^[2][11]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 879
3. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. cent
5. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. procent
6. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1056
7. ^ 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. procent
8. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
9. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
10. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 728
11. ^ 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, 557
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional