romantic

Forms

romantic m or n (feminine singular romantică, masculine plural romantici, feminine/neuter plural romantice)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French romantique, partly also borrowed from German romantisch.^[2][3][4] DEX and DN add Italian romantico as a third model.^[5][6] Wiktionary gives only the French word.^[1] French borrowed it in 1675 from English romantic, a derivative of the old forms of the word for a romance or novel.^[7] German took it from French and English at the end of the 17th century, at first in the sense “like a novel”.^[8][9] It is related to roman “novel”.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Romanian translation of Thornton's account of Wallachia and Moldavia, printed at Buda in 1826 (from an edition printed in Paris in 1812), which speaks of „pădurile cele dese și romantice” “the dense and romantic forests”.^[3][2][4] The sense there is a landscape that recalls the beauty of places described in novels: picturesque.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The picturesque landscape sense is the oldest, and it lasted through the 19th century in Negruzzi and Bolliac.^[3] In 1836 the word appears in a periodical for the literary school: „o poezie de școală romantică sau gotică” “a poetry of the romantic or Gothic school”.^[3] Costinescu (1870) explains it as the new style opposed to the classical one.^[11] Used as a noun it named a writer of the romantic school, and by extension a dreamy, melancholy person.^[5][2] The old landscape sense is now given as the first sense only by MDA2 and the DLR.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1826 – „pădurile cele dese și romantice” in the translation of Thornton, the first record.^[3][4]
• 1836 – the literary sense, „o poezie de școală romantică”.^[3]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary defines the romantic style as opposed to the classical.^[11]
• 1886 – Barcianu glosses it with German romantisch and malerisch “picturesque”.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Inspired by romantism or belonging to it; showing the features of that movement: poezia romantică “Romantic poetry”.^[5][2][1]
2. (dated) Recalling the beauty of the places described in novels; picturesque.^[2][3]
3. By extension, dreamy, melancholy, sentimental: o seară romantică “a romantic evening”.^[5][13]

Noun

1. An artist or writer whose work belongs to Romanticism.^[5][2]
2. A dreamy, melancholy person.^[5][2]

Related words

• romantism
• roman
• French romantique

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 722
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. romantic
4. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. romantic
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 961
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. romantic
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. romantique
8. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 772
9. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de, p. s.v. romantisch
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1136
11. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 449
12. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 553
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. romantic