tristețe

Forms

tristețe f (plural tristeți)^[1] A variant tristeță occurs in Eminescu: „Surîsul lui căpătase acea umbră dulce de tristeță, care-l făcea atît de interesant” “his smile had taken on that sweet shade of sadness that made him so interesting”.^[2][3] MDA2 records a rare old plural tristețuri beside the usual tristeți.^[4]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian trist + -ețe, on the model of French tristesse and Italian tristezza.^{[5][4][6][7][8]} Tiktin calls it an imitation of the Italian and French nouns made with the Romanian adjective.^[7] Wiktionary names Latin trīstitia (“sadness”) as a further possible model.^[1] The Latin noun is formed on trīstis (“sad”) with the suffix -itia;^[9] the Italian noun continues it, and the French one was modelled on it.^[1]

The base trist goes back to the same Latin adjective and its popular form trīstus.^[6] Ciorănescu notes that the adjective is missing from the dialects south of the Danube and seems to have had a limited popular use in Romanian, where it is recorded from the 16th century.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1703, with the sense “sadness”.^[7] MDA2 and the DLR give as their first evidence Polizu's Romanian–German dictionary of 1857.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The noun names a heavy, oppressive state of mind, grief or dejection; by extension it also means regret.^[5][4] It took over from older words of the same family, tristă and tristeală, which the DLR marks as obsolete synonyms.^[2] The plural tristeți names single sorrows or kinds of sadness: tristeți grele “heavy sorrows”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1703 – the first record.^[7]
• 1857 – in Polizu's Romanian–German dictionary.^[4][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. sadness, sorrow: a heavy, dejected state of mind; grief, bitterness.^[5][4][1]
2. (by extension) regret.^[5][4]

Related words

• trist
• întrista
• French tristesse
• Italian tristezza

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. tristețe
3. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 500
4. ^ 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, 1283
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1148
6. ^ 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. trist
7. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. tristețe
8. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. tristețe
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press