suspect

Forms

suspect m or n (feminine singular suspectă, masculine plural suspecți, feminine/neuter plural suspecte)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French suspect and Latin suspectus (“suspected, distrusted”).^[2][3][4][1] MDA2 and the DLR give French alone,^[5][6] Scriban and Negulici Latin alone.^[7][8] The Latin adjective is the participle of suspiciō (“to look up at; to suspect”),^[9] formed from sub (“under”) and speciō (“to look”).^[10] The French word is a remodelling of about 1360 of an earlier Old French suspet (1311).^[10] Scriban relates it to aspect.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Negulici's vocabulary of neologisms of 1848, which explains it as “suspected; deserving or giving cause to be suspected”.^[8][5] A document of the same year in the Uricariul speaks of „tot moldovanul care ar fi suspect cârmuirei de vreo faptă” “every Moldavian whom the government might suspect of some deed”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The adjective is used of a person under suspicion and of anything that inspires mistrust: a silence, a death, a source of information.^[6][5] As a noun it names the suspected person.^[5][2] Scriban records the medical use bolnav suspect “a patient suspected of still carrying germs”, and the DLR un caz suspect de tifos “a suspected case of typhus”.^[7][6] Rarer senses are “of ill repute” of a social milieu and “shady” of a business deal; an old noun sense was “suspicion”.^[5]

Timeline

• 1848 – listed in Negulici's vocabulary of neologisms.^[8][5]
• 1848 – suspect cârmuirei “suspected by the government” in a Moldavian document.^[6]
• 1875 – Antonescu's dictionary gives French suspect as the equivalent.^[11]
• 1886 – Barcianu glosses it German verdächtig.^[12]
• 1939 – bolnav suspect “suspected patient” in Scriban.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a person: suspected, under suspicion.^[5][2]
2. Arousing suspicion or mistrust; dubious, doubtful.^[2][13]
3. (rare) Of a business deal: shady.^[5]

Noun

1. A suspect, a person suspected of something.^[5][1]

Related words

• aspect
• Latin suspectus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1081
3. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. suspect
4. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. suspect
5. ^ 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, 1076
6. ^ 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. suspect
7. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1271
8. ^ a b c 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. suspect
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 305
12. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 626
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 324