tendință

Forms

tendință f (plural tendințe)^[1] The first record has the older form tendenție: „Tendențiia (tinderea) cătră starea bucuriei cei de pururea” “the tendency (the striving) towards the state of everlasting joy” (Iorgovici, 1799).^[2] Russo still wrote tendenție in the 19th century: „a combate tendenția literaturii” “to fight the tendency of literature”.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French tendance.^{[4][5][6][7][1]} Ciorănescu notes that the French ending -ance was matched with the Romanian -ință of pairs such as puissance and putință, croyance and credință.^[4] Tiktin derives it instead from Italian tendenza, and the NODEX gives both the Italian and the French word, as Marcu and Maneca do.^[2][8][9] The older forms ⟨tendență⟩ and ⟨tendenție⟩, with plural ⟨tendinți⟩, are recorded by Tiktin and MDA2.^[2][5]

The French noun is formed from tendre (“to tend, stretch”) with that suffix.^[1] Ciorănescu derives the adjective tendențios from French tendancieux as well.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1799, in a text of Iorgovici, as tendenție glossed with the native tinderea: the striving of the soul towards everlasting joy.^[2] MDA2 dates the form tendință to Iordache Golescu's Condica limbii rumânești, a manuscript dictionary of about 1832.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In 1848 Negulici listed the word among the new words, as an inclination or drawing towards something, a disposition of the soul.^[10] In the 19th century it also came to mean the purpose or bias of literature and art, and the DLRLC quotes critics who praised or blamed the “tendency” of a writer's work.^[3][11] The DEX keeps this as a term of art theory: the practical, social or moral aim some theorists ascribe to art.^[7] A sense from physics, the force that drives a body in one direction and the direction of a moving body, stands beside the general sense.^[5][7]

Newspapers of the 2000s use în tendințe “in fashion”, after the English in trends.^[12]

Timeline

• 1799 – tendenție in a text of Iorgovici, the first record.^[2]
• c. 1832 – tendință in Iordache Golescu's Condica limbii rumânești.^[5]
• 1848 – listed among the neologisms in Negulici's dictionary.^[10]
• 2005 – în tendințe “in fashion” in the press.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A natural inclination or disposition towards something; a striving, a conscious drive towards an aim.^[7][5][1]
2. The shared orientation of a group of people; a trend or direction, as in tendințele pieței “the market trends”.^[7][5]
3. The development of someone or something in a given direction.^[7]
4. (physics) The force that makes a body move in a certain direction; the direction of a moving body.^[7][9]
5. (art theory) The political, social or moral purpose that some theorists attribute to a work of art, as opposed to art for its own sake.^[7][9]

Word family

• tendențios

Related words

• tinde
• French tendance

Usage notes

In the colloquial language of fashion, a fi în tendințe means “to be in fashion”, a phrase modelled on the English in trends.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. tendință
3. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. tendință
4. ^ a b c 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. tendință
5. ^ 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, 1198
6. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. tendință
7. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 1117
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. tendință
9. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. tendință
10. ^ 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. tendință
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 412
12. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. tendință