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revedere

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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word revedere

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1852 Stamati's dictionary More words from the 19th century
Ultimate origin
Romanian revedea,-re

Forms

revedere f (plural revederi)[1]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of revedea (“to see again”), formed from Romanian revedea + -re and used as a noun.[2][3][4][1] The farewell formula la revedere was modelled on French au revoir, as Marcu and Maneca's dictionary of neologisms says;[5][6] Scriban adds Italian a rivederci.[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is Asachi's literary writings, quoted in the DLR: „Revederea patriei…” “seeing the homeland again”.[3][4] Tiktin dates the word from Stamati's dictionary of 1852, with la revedere! “goodbye!”.[7]

Semantic evolution

The noun names the act of seeing again, above all a reunion after a long time, and, figuratively, the calling up of past memories.[3] It soon took on the farewell formula: Pontbriant (1862), Costinescu (1870) and Damé give la revedere as the equivalent of French au revoir, and Barițiu (1869) gives it for Hungarian viszontlátásra.[8][9][10][11] Laurian and Massim list it among the formulas of greeting.[12] Eminescu used Revedere as the title of a poem.[4]

The phrase a-și lua la revedere “to say goodbye” is recent; the DLR quotes it from Preda.[4][3] An old sense, “revision”, followed the verb's sense “to revise” and has gone out of use.[4]

Timeline

  • 1852 – revedere and la revedere! in Stamati's dictionary.[7]
  • 1862 – la revedere “au revoir” in Pontbriant's dictionary.[8]
  • 1869 – la revedere! as the equivalent of Hungarian viszontlátásra! in Barițiu's dictionary.[11]
  • 1870 – la revedere in Costinescu's dictionary.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Seeing again; a reunion after some time: bucuria revederii “the joy of meeting again”.[2][3][1]
  2. (figurative) Calling up memories, things and events of the past.[3]
  • revedea
  • vedea
  • French au revoir

Usage notes

La revedere! is the usual polite goodbye, literally “till seeing again”;[2][3] a-și lua la revedere means “to take one's leave”.[2][3] The plural is revederi.[2]

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. 951
  3. ^ 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, 702
  4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. revedere
  5. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. revedere
  6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1124
  7. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. revedere
  8. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 635
  9. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 441
  10. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État
  11. ^ a b Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 633
  12. ^ Laurian, A. T.; Massim, I. C. (1871–1876), Dictionariulu limbei romane, 2 vols., Bucuresci: Noua Typographia a Laboratoriloru Romani, p. 2
Cite this entry

“Revedere.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/revedere. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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