relevant

Forms

relevant m or n (feminine singular relevantă, masculine plural relevanți, feminine/neuter plural relevante)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French relevant.^[2][3][4][1] DEX compares the verb releva “to point out”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and the DLR take the first record from Alexi's Romanian–German dictionary of 1906, in the sense “that points something out”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The DLR quotes it in 1948 as an adverb, of facts embodied “relevantly” in living characters.^[4] A history of the Romanian language uses it in the sense “significant for”: a conjunction is “less relevant” for understanding the sentence.^[4] In linguistics it took the sense “distinctive”, as in Rosetti's remark that in most Romance languages the stress is mobile and relevant.^[4][3] The opposite irelevant has a separate source: MDA2 takes it from German.^[5]

Timeline

• 1906 – first record, in Alexi's dictionary.^[3]
• 1948 – the adverb, in the review Contemporanul.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. That brings something out or stands out; significant, relevant.^[2][3][1]
2. (linguistics) distinctive: serving to set up an opposition in a system.^[6][3]

Related words

• releva
• relevanță
• irelevant

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 940
3. ^ 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, 686
4. ^ 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. relevant
5. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1163
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. relevant