referi

Forms

referi (present refer, third person referă, subjunctive să refere, past participle referit) 4th conjugation^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French référer and German referieren.^[4][3][5][1] Ciorănescu names only the French verb.^[6] The French word is a learned loan of the 14th century, from Latin referō (“to bring back, report”), from re- and ferō (“to carry”).^[7] The German verb was borrowed from French, or from Latin under French influence.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to 1851, in Stamati's dictionary of technical and difficult words.^[4] Antonescu's dictionary of 1875 glosses it with French référer and rapporter.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The verb has two uses: “to report on something”, construed with despre or asupra, and the reflexive a se referi la “to refer to, concern, allude to”.^[3][2] A first-conjugation variant refera was used in the older language.^[4][3] Romanian took the related words from French separately: referat “report” from référé and referință from référence;^[6] referitor “concerning” was formed on the verb.^[6]

Timeline

• 1851 – in Stamati's dictionary, the first record.^[4]
• 1875 – glossed with French référer in Antonescu's dictionary.^[10]
• 1893 – in Damé's dictionary.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To make a report; to report, relate.^[3][4]
2. (reflexive, with la) To refer to, relate to, concern someone or something; to allude to.^[3][4]

Word family

• referitor

Related words

• referat
• referință

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 709
3. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 934
4. ^ 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, 676
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. referi
6. ^ a b c 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. referi
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
9. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
10. ^ a b Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 261
11. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. referi