stabili

Forms

stabili (third-person singular present stabilește, past participle stabilit) 4th conjugation^[1] A rare old variant is stăbili.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin stabiliō (“to make firm, establish”), a 19th-century learned loan, which DEX and the neologism dictionaries also give as borrowed from Italian stabilire.^[3][4][1] MDA2 and the Academy dictionary give only the Latin.^[2][5] The Latin verb is formed on stabilis (“firm, steadfast”) with the suffix -iō, and the adjective comes from stō (“to stand”).^[6][1] The Italian verb, recorded from the 13th century, is a learned loan from the Latin.^[6]

The adjective stabil was borrowed separately from the Latin adjective.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is I. Eliade's translation of Byron's Don Juan (1847), in the reflexive sense “to settle”: a Spanish family had settled in the port of Livorno.^[2][5] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 lists it as a neologism, glossed with the native a statornici.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Beside “to settle”, the dictionaries record senses of fixing and deciding: “to set, to determine”, “to decide”, “to prove, to show”, and “to found, to institute”.^[5][3] Damé's dictionary of the 1890s still marks it as a neologism.^[9] A stabili legătura cu cineva means “to get in touch with someone”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1847 – se stabili “settled” in I. Eliade's Byron translation, the first record.^[2]
• 1848 – Negulici lists stabilire.^[8]
• 1875 – Antonescu glosses it French “établir, affermir”.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To determine, to fix; to decide, to specify.^[3][1]
2. (transitive) To prove, to demonstrate; by extension, to discover.^[3][1]
3. (transitive) To bring about; to found, to set up, to institute.^[3]
4. (transitive, reflexive) To settle permanently in a place.^[3][2]

Word family

• stabilire
• restabili
• prestabili

Related words

• stabil

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 968
3. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1045
4. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. stabili
5. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. stabili
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. stabile
7. ^ DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1044
8. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. stabilire
9. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. stabili
10. ^ Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 295