simptom

Forms

simptom n (plural simptome)^[1] Older and rarer forms are the feminine simptomă, simtom, simtomă and simtoamă, and the Greek plural simptomata or simtomata; the plural is simptome, rarely simptoame, formerly also simptomuri.^[2][3] Chiriacopol (1827) has the Greek plural: „să arată simptomata de greață” “the symptoms of nausea appear”.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek σύμπτωμα (símptoma), Latin symptōma, German Symptom, French symptôme and Italian sintomo: DLR and MDA2 name all five, a case of multiple etymology.^[3][2] NODEX names Greek, Latin, German and French, Tiktin Greek and Latin, and DEX, MDN, DILF and Wiktionary French alone.^{[5][4][6][7][8][1]} The old forms ⟨simtomata⟩ and ⟨simptomata⟩ are the Greek plural συμπτώματα (simptómata).^[3]

The Latin word is from Ancient Greek σύμπτωμα (súmptōma, “chance, occurrence”), which in Greek medicine came to mean a sign of disease.^[1][9] It is formed on συμπίπτω (sumpíptō, “to fall together, to coincide”), from σύν (sún, “with, together”) and πίπτω (píptō, “to fall”).^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and DLR take the first record from Meșteșugul doftoricesc, a manuscript translation from Greek of Pápai Páriz's Pax corporis made in the second half of the 18th century.^[2][3] Tiktin's first date is Chiriacopol's medical book of 1827, which has the Greek plural simptomata.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Medical books of the 1820s–1850s used the word with many forms; one glossed it as semne “signs”, and a cholera pamphlet called the symptoms, “in more Romanian words”, the signs of the disease.^[3] The figurative sense, a sign of an abnormal state of a person or of society, follows the medical one in DEX and MDA2.^[6][2]

Timeline

• 2nd half of the 18th century – in Meșteșugul doftoricesc, a manuscript translation from Greek.^[2][3]
• 1827 – the Greek plural simptomata in Chiriacopol.^[4][3]
• 1829 – simptome “symptoms” of a disease in Curierul Românesc.^[3]
• 1848 – listed in Negulici's dictionary.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. symptom: a functional disturbance or abnormal sensation that may point to a disease.^[6][2]
2. (figurative) A sign of an abnormal state of a person or of society.^[6][2]

Related words

• simptomatic
• French symptôme

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 893
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. simptom
4. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. simptom
5. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. simptom
6. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1019
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. simptom
8. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria
9. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
10. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 901
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert