rata

Forms

a rata (third-person singular present ratează, past participle ratat), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French rater (“to miss, to misfire”), a 20th-century loan.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The French verb appeared in the early 18th century, probably first of a gun that failed to go off, from the phrase prendre un rat (“to misfire”) of 1651, literally “to catch a rat”, built on rat.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is Candrea's illustrated dictionary (CADE), whose first part came out in 1926.^[2] DLR's earliest literary quotations, from Teodoreanu and Călinescu, use it of missing an effect or a career.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Romanian took over the French senses together: to let an opportunity slip, to fail at something, and, of a firearm or an explosive charge, to fail to go off.^[3][6][7] DEX and MDA2 also record the reflexive a se rata “to fail to make something of oneself”.^[3][2] The participle ratat became an adjective and noun, “a failure”, a person who never achieved anything of value.^[3]

Timeline

• 1926 – first record, in Candrea's dictionary (CADE).^[2]
• 1955–1957 – DLRLC records the transitive sense and the misfiring of weapons.^[7]
• 1986 – Marcu and Maneca list the sense “to fail” beside “to miss a chance”.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To miss or let slip an opportunity: A ratat trenul de ora opt. “He missed the eight o'clock train.”^[3][2]
2. (transitive) To fail at something, to fall short; to botch.^[3][5]
3. (reflexive) To fail to make one's mark or to realise one's abilities.^[3][2]
4. (intransitive, of firearms and explosives) To misfire, to fail to go off.^[3][5]

Word family

• ratare
• ratat

Related words

• French rater

Usage notes

Rata is also the articled form of the noun rată “instalment; rate”, a word of separate origin.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 626
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 913
4. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. rata
5. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. rata
6. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. rata
7. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 657