talent

Forms

talent n (plural talente)^[1] Older and regional forms are talant and talanț; the old plural ends in -turi (talenturi, talanturi): Mumuleanu writes „cei ce știu ceva ș-au talanturi” “those who know something and have talents”.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French talent, with Latin talentum as a second source in DEX, the DLR and the DILF;^[5][4][6] MDA2 and NODEX add German Talent, and Tiktin calls it a New Latin word, mostly taken indirectly.^{[5][4][6][2][7][3]} Wiktionary gives only the French word.^[1] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek τάλαντον (tálanton, “balance; a weight; a sum of money”).^[8][1][9] The sense “gift, aptitude” comes from the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30), where the coins entrusted to the servants were read as gifts from God.^[10][11][9]

The older Romanian talant “talent (weight, coin)”, from Slavonic талантъ (talantŭ) and Greek, is the same word borrowed earlier.^[12][13] DER and Gabinschi treat the two forms as doublets.^[12][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates talent to 1703.^[3] MDA2's first record is the Cugetări, a manuscript translation from French of 1799, in the sense of natural aptitude and in the form talant.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The ancient weight and coin of the Gospel parable had entered Romanian earlier through church texts as talant, recorded from Coresi on (1564 in Tiktin, 1581 in MDA2).^[15][13] This form also took the figurative sense “spiritual gift”, which MDA2 marks as old.^[13]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, under French and Latin influence, talent and talant came to mean “aptitude, gift”.^[2][4][3] Dictionaries around 1900 still listed both the ancient weight and coin and the figurative sense under talent.^[16] Negulici in 1848 gives the ancient coin as a term of antiquity and the figurative sense as “ability, a gift of nature”.^[17] The word also names a gifted person.^[5] Regionally talant means a bad habit, a temperament, and of horses a vice.^[2]

Timeline

• 1564 – talant “talent (coin)” in Coresi.^[15]
• 1688 – talanți in the parable of the talents in the Bucharest Bible.^[15]
• 1703 – talent, Tiktin's first record.^[3]
• 1799 – talant “gift, aptitude” in the Cugetări, a translation from French.^[2][4]
• 1848 – talent in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A natural aptitude for something; a remarkable gift, inborn or acquired, that favours creative work;^[5] de talent “talented”.^[5][2][1]
2. A person with such gifts: un tânăr talent.^[5]
3. (historical) The talent of antiquity, a Greek weight and coin.^[16][17]
4. (regional) A bad habit; temperament; of a horse, a vice.^[2]

Word family

• talentat

Related words

• talant
• Latin talentum

Usage notes

A-și da talente means “to give oneself airs”.^[2] The ancient weight and coin is now usually talant, plural talanți.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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, 1152
3. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. talent
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. talent
5. ^ 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. 1100
6. ^ a b Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria
7. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. talent
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 905
11. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
12. ^ a b 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. talant
13. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1151
14. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 169
15. ^ 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. talant
16. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 637
17. ^ 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. talent