tânăr

Forms

tânăr m or n (feminine singular tânără, masculine plural tineri, feminine/neuter plural tinere)^[1] MDA2 records the variants tinăr and tiner (older and regional), tâner (old) and tanăr (regional).^[2] The word was spelled tînăr from 1953 to 1993, and тынэр in the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *tenerus, the popular form of Latin tener (“soft, tender, delicate”).^{[3][2][4][1][5]} The older form tinăr became the modern form under the influence of the following ⟨ă⟩, as Rosetti explained.^[3] It survives in all four branches: Aromanian tinir, Megleno-Romanian tinir and Istro-Romanian tiner.^[3][6][7] In the Romance languages the word kept the Latin sense “soft, tender”: Italian tenero, French tendre, Occitan tenre, Spanish tierno and Portuguese terno; only Romanian has the sense “young”.^[5][8][3]

The origin of the Latin adjective is disputed.^[1] De Vaan compares Sanskrit तरुण (táruṇa, “young, tender”) and Ancient Greek τέρην (térēn, “soft”); others connect it with Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).^[9][1]

The adjective tandru “tender” is a doublet, borrowed from the same French adjective.^[10][1][11] The word passed into Romani as terne “young”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 gives the first record from the Hurmuzaki Psalter of the early 16th century.^[2] Coresi's psalter of 1570 has tînăr and the plural tinerii.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Already in the earliest texts the word means “young”, of people and animals: someone between childhood and maturity.^[2][4] It is used for plants recently planted or sprung up, as in pădure tânără “young forest”, and for what belongs to youth.^[4] As a noun it means a young man, and in the old language a child.^[2][13] The Latin sense “tender, soft” reappeared in the Romantic period as a Gallicism and has since gone out of use.^[3]

The derivative tinerețe “youth” has the suffix -ețe, as in bătrânețe “old age”; the REW took it from a Latin *teneritia, which also gave Italian tenerezza and French tendresse.^[3][14] Other derivatives are tineret “young people”, tinerime and întineri “to grow young again”.^[3]

Timeline

• early 16th century – the first record, in the Hurmuzaki Psalter.^[2]
• 1570 – tînăr and tinerii in Coresi's psalter.^[12]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary has Taenar, referring to Tinar.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. young: of a person or animal, between childhood and maturity; not yet mature: un medic tânăr.^[4] De tânăr means “from an early age”.^[4][1]
2. Belonging to or typical of a young person or animal.^[4]
3. Of plants, recently planted or sprung up; made up of such plants: copaci tineri “young trees”.^[4][2]

Noun

1. A young man, a youth;^[4][16][1] (in the plural) young people: tineri căsătoriți “newly-weds”.^[4][16][1]

Word family

• tineret
• tinerețe
• tinerime
• întineri

Related words

• tandru
• Latin tener

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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, 1179
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. tînăr
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1110
5. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 160
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1035
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 295
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8645
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 101
11. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 170
12. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 36:26
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 437
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8647
15. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 454
16. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. tânăr