trata

Forms

trata (third-person singular present tratează, past participle tratat) 1st conjugation^[1] The older form was tracta, with the present tractez: „vrăjmașii or să-i tracteze cu cele mai aspre mijloace” “the enemies would treat them by the harshest means” (1829).^[2][3][4] Tiktin records the obsolete variants tractirui, tractarisi and trăctui;^[5] Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică has trăctui.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian trattare, and also borrowed from Latin tractāre, the two sources DEX and Wiktionary give.^[4][1] Other dictionaries add more models: MDA2 and DLR name Latin, Modern Greek τραττάρω (trattáro) and French traiter, and Tiktin also German traktieren, a case of the multiple etymology common with neologisms.^[3][2][5] The old form tracta shows the Latin spelling, and the variants tractirui, tractarisi and trăctui were made with the borrowing suffixes of the period.^[5][3] Graur gives the chain from Latin through Italian to Romanian.^[6]

The Latin verb is a frequentative of trahō (“to draw, pull”); besides “to drag” it meant “to handle”, “to manage”, “to behave towards someone” and “to discuss a subject”, the senses that passed into the Romance languages.^[7][8] The same Latin verb gave Romanian, by way of French, trasa, while trage continues the base verb itself.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the verb to 1705, in Cantemir.^[5] DLR's and MDA2's first quotation is from 1829, under the form tracta, in the sense “to behave towards someone in a certain way”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the form tracta and the sense of treating someone well or badly are frequent, in Heliade, Kogălniceanu, Negruzzi and Ghica;^[2] trata became the usual form later in the century.^[2] Pontbriant (1862) glosses it with French traiter and “to receive, welcome”.^[9] Other senses followed the French and Italian ones: to offer a guest food or drink, to give medical treatment, to negotiate (a trata pacea “to negotiate the peace”), to deal with a subject in speech or writing, and, in technology, to subject a substance to a chemical agent.^[4][10] The old variant tractirui had the sense of negotiating.^[3]

Timeline

• 1705 – first record, in Cantemir.^[5]
• 1829 – tracta “to treat (someone)”.^[2][3]
• 1862 – trata “to treat; to receive” in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[9]
• 1929 – Șăineanu lists the senses “to expound”, “to treat (someone)”, “to nurse a patient”, “to treat with an agent”, “to negotiate” and “to regale”.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To treat someone or something in a certain way: L-a tratat ca pe un frate. “He treated him like a brother.”^[4][1]
2. To offer a guest food or drink; to regale.^[4][11]
3. (also reflexive) To give or undergo medical treatment.^[4][3]
4. To negotiate, hold talks on an economic, social or political matter in order to reach an agreement.^[4][1]
5. To discuss or set out a scientific or literary subject, in speech or writing.^[4]
6. To subject a material to the action of a chemical or physical agent; specifically, to treat seeds and plants against disease.^[4][11]

Related words

• tratat
• tratament
• tratativă
• trage
• Italian trattare

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. trata
3. ^ 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, 1260
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. 1140
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. trata
6. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 104
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. trattare
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. traiter
9. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 749
10. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 664
11. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. trata