regreta

Forms

regreta (third-person singular present regretă, past participle regretat) 1st conjugation^[1] The present was once also regretez: „O melodie în inimă-ți rămasă din ani ce regretezi” “a melody left in your heart from years you regret” (Grigore Alexandrescu).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French regretter, one of the French verbs of the 19th century.^{[4][3][2][5][1]} The French verb, recorded as Old French regreter from about 1050, is of uncertain origin: the DHLF takes it as probably re- with a verb borrowed from Old Norse gráta (“to weep”), and Wiktionary derives the base from Frankish *grātan (“to weep, lament”).^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Barițiu's Hungarian–Romanian dictionary of 1869 gives regreta among the equivalents of Hungarian bánkódik “to grieve, to be sorry”.^[7] MDA2's first record is a sentence of Constantin Negruzzi, in the edition of 1872: „Nu poate cineva decît a regreta activitatea în darn cheltuită” “one can only regret the activity spent in vain”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant from the start “to be sorry for something lost or done”; by extension it also means “to feel remorse, repent”.^[2][4] The DLR notes older equivalents it partly displaced: a jeli “to mourn” and regional a-și bănui.^[2] Used without an object, regret is a formula of polite refusal: Regret, dar nu știu să dansez “I'm sorry, but I can't dance”, in a novel the DLR quotes.^[2]

Timeline

• 1869 – regreta as an equivalent of Hungarian bánkódik in Barițiu's dictionary.^[7]
• 1872 – a regreta in the edition of Negruzzi's writings, MDA2's first record.^[3]
• 1893–1895 – regreta with French regretter in Damé's dictionary.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To regret, to be sorry about something or someone; to miss something lost: regretă anii petrecuți departe de casă.^[4][2][1]
2. By extension, to feel remorse, to repent of a deed.^[4][3]
3. Without an object, as a polite formula: to be sorry (when refusing or apologising).^[2]

Related words

• regret
• French regretter

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. regreta
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 681
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 937
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. regreta
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. regretter
7. ^ a b Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 32
8. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. regreta