Romanian words from French
133 Romanian words with French in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
abate
1. The word for the abbot is borrowed from Italian abate. DLRM and MDA2 also name borrowed from Latin abbās, abbātis, while the DA has it borrowed from French abbé: DELR records all three views. The…
accepta
It is borrowed from French accepter, a 19th-century neologism; DELR, DEX and Marcu give Latin acceptō (“to receive”) beside it as a second model. Ciorănescu, Tiktin and the DA give French alone. The…
accident
It is borrowed from French accident and directly borrowed from Latin accidēns, as DEX, MDA2 and the neologism dictionaries give it. DELR and Tiktin add Italian accidente, and Ciorănescu names French…
acord
It is borrowed from French accord, with Italian accordo as a second model: MDA2, DEX and Tiktin name both languages. Ciorănescu and the DA give French alone, and Wikționar gives French with the…
agent
It is borrowed from French agent, also borrowed from Latin agens, the present participle of agō (“to drive, to act”). Ciorănescu names only the French word, Tiktin the French word, comparing German…
alo
It is borrowed from French allô. The DA calls the French word Anglo-American, and DELR derives it from English hallo or hello, an interjection for catching someone's attention that spread with the…
american
DELR takes it as borrowed from French américain and New Latin Americanus, and the DA says it was formed after the French word. Marcu's MDN gives the French word alone. DEX, MDA2 and Wiktionary…
amuzant
It is borrowed from French amusant (“amusing”), as DELR, Tiktin, MDA2, DEX and Wiktionary agree. DELR treats it in the family of the verb amuza, beside amuzament, from amusement. The Academy…
apartament
It is borrowed from French appartement and the Italian appartamento. DEX and Wiktionary name only the French word. French took the word from the Italian, which is from Spanish apartamiento…
atac
It is borrowed from French attaque. The DELR names Italian attacco beside the French word, Tiktin the Italian alone, and the DA gives French with Italian as a parallel. The French word is a noun…
ataca
It is borrowed from French attaquer (“to attack”), a 19th-century neologism. DELR names borrowed from Italian attaccare beside the French verb, and Tiktin gives only the Italian word. The DA takes…
avion
It is borrowed from French avion (“aeroplane”), as all the dictionaries agree. The French word was coined by the inventor Clément Ader in 1875 on Latin avis (“bird”). Wiktionary adds that it was…
avocat
It is borrowed from French avocat, with learned Latin advocātus beside it, according to MDA2, DEX and Wiktionary. Marcu & Maneca put the Latin word first and compare German Advokat, Italian avvocato…
bază
It is borrowed from French base, from Latin basis (“pedestal, base”), from Ancient Greek βάσις (básis, “step, base”). The older Romanian forms had other sources: ⟨vas⟩ and ⟨vasis⟩ are from Modern…
bilet
It is borrowed from French billet, the source all the dictionaries name. DELR also gives German Billett, and DEX compares Italian biglietto, which the DLRM gives as the source. Ciorănescu thinks the…
birou
It is borrowed from French bureau, partly also borrowed from Russian бюро́ (bjuró). MDA2 names both sources. The French word is from Old French burel, a diminutive of the name of a coarse cloth…
cadavru
It is borrowed from French cadavre (“corpse”). DEX 2009 and MDA2 name French alone, DELR the learned Latin cadaver (“dead body, corpse”) beside French, and Wiktionary adds German Kadaver. The DA and…
cadou
It is borrowed from French cadeau. The French word first meant an ornamented capital letter and was borrowed in 1416 from Old Occitan capdel (“chief, captain”), from Latin capitellum (“small head”)…
cap
1. The word for the head is inherited from Latin caput (“head”), a word kept by all the Romance languages. Pușcariu and Ciorănescu start from a popular form *capum, remade as a noun of the second…
centru
It is borrowed from French centre and the learned Latin centrum. Tiktin gives only the Latin. The Latin word is from Ancient Greek κέντρον (kéntron, “goad, sting, sharp point”), which since Euclid…
chestie
It is the familiar variant of chestiune, which is borrowed from French question, with Latin quaestiō (“a seeking, a question”) as a second source. DELR treats the Latin word as a learned loan and…
clar
It is a learned borrowed from Latin clārus (“bright, clear, famous”) of the early 19th century. DELR, DEX and Tiktin also name borrowed from French clair, itself adapted after the Latin word, and…
clasă
It is borrowed from French classe, with German Klasse as a second model, both from Latin classis (“division of citizens; levy; fleet”). Ciorănescu gives only the French word. Tiktin and the DA add…
client
It is borrowed from French client and the Latin cliēns, a learned borrowing of the 19th century. Wiktionary names the French word, itself a learned borrowing from Latin; Marcu and Maneca put the…
club
It is borrowed from French club, which is from English club; DEX and MDA2 name both French and English as sources, and Tiktin allows a direct English loan as well as one through another language…
companie
It is a loan with several sources. The modern form, stressed on the ending, is borrowed from French compagnie and Italian compagnia, perhaps with German Kompagnie. The older form, stressed on the…
complet
It is borrowed from French complet, with Latin complētus named beside it by DEX 2009, MDA2, Tiktin and Wiktionary. The Latin word is the past participle of compleō “to fill up, complete”, from con-…
conta
It is borrowed from French compter (“to count”), perhaps also borrowed from Italian contare. DELR gives French first and Italian as possible; MDA2, DEX and the neologism dictionaries name both, and…
continua
It is borrowed from French continuer (“to continue”), together with its own source, borrowed from Latin continuō (“to join together, continue”). DELR calls the Latin verb a learned borrowing, and…
control
It is borrowed from French contrôle, the source that DEX, Marcu & Maneca's DN, Marcu's MDN, DILF, MDA2, Tiktin, Ciorănescu and DELR all name. The feminine variant controlă of Transylvania and…
corect
It is borrowed from French correct. DEX, Marcu and DELR take it as also borrowed from Latin correctus (“corrected, improved”), the learned Latin word, and DELR names German korrekt as a third model…
corp
It is borrowed from French corps according to DELR and MDA2, with Latin corpus (“body”) beside it in MDA2: a learned word of the 18th and 19th centuries, whose route the sources describe…
crimă
It is borrowed from French crime, from Latin crimen (“accusation, charge”). MDA2 names the Latin word beside the French one, and an old neuter variant kept the Latin form unchanged. Graur places the…
criminal
It is borrowed from French criminel and, as a learned loan, borrowed from Latin criminālis: DELR, DEX, MDA2 and Wiktionary name both sources. The neologism dictionaries give the Latin word first and…
curs
1. The word for the flow of water is inherited from Latin cursus (“running, course”), with some senses modelled on French cours. The Latin noun was formed on currō (“to run”). Tiktin counts the…
dansa
It is borrowed from French danser (“to dance”). The variant danța took its ⟨ț⟩ from the older noun danț, according to DELR; the DLR explains it by German tanzen. DHLF thinks a Germanic origin of the…
dată
1. The word for “time, occasion” is from Romanian dat (“given”), the past participle of da “to give”, used as a feminine noun. DELR lists it among the derivatives of that verb, and it also exists in…
decizie
It is borrowed from French décision, taken in together with learned Latin decisio. Tiktin gives only the French word, and Marcu & Maneca put the Latin first, comparing the French. Ciorănescu lists…
deja
It is borrowed from French déjà (“already”). Ciorănescu calls it a Gallicism. The French adverb grew out of the phrase Old French des ja, from des (“right after”) and ja (“now, then”), the latter…
deranja
It is borrowed from French déranger (“to disarrange, disturb”). The French verb is formed on ranger (“to arrange, put in order”), from rang (“row, rank”), which goes back to Frankish *hring…
detectiv
It is borrowed from French détective, as DEX, NODEX and MDA2 give it. The DLR and MDN name the English word beside the French one, and the DN compares it. French borrowed it in 1867 from English…
deveni
It is borrowed from French devenir (“to become”), the source that DEX, DELR, the DLR, Tiktin and the neologism dictionaries name. According to MDA2 and Wiktionary it is also borrowed from Latin…
direct
It is borrowed from French direct and Latin dīrēctus (“straight, without intermediary”): DEX and Marcu's MDN name both, MDA2 too. Marcu & Maneca's DN gives the Latin word with the French one for…
discuta
It is borrowed from French discuter, one of the French loans of the 19th century. The French verb is from Latin discutiō, whose sense moved from “to shatter, scatter” to “to search through” and, in…
dispărea
It is borrowed from French disparaître, conjugated after părea (“to seem”). Wiktionary and Marcu and Maneca add Late Latin disparēre and Italian disparire as models. The French verb was made with…
dolar
It is borrowed from English dollar, and at the same time borrowed from French dollar: DELR, MDA2, DEX and the neologism dictionaries name both sources. Tiktin, Scriban and Wiktionary give English…
domestic
It is borrowed from French domestique and Latin domesticus (“of the house”), the two sources DEX, DN and MDN name. DELR also gives learned Latin and French. Ciorănescu and Tiktin name only the Latin…
drog
It is borrowed from French drogue. DN compares Italian droga. The French word is of uncertain origin; DELR names Middle Dutch droge (“dry”) as a possible source, from phrases such as droge vate…
dura
1. The word for building is inherited from Latin dolō (“to hew, chop into shape”). The older sense survives in Aromanian durari, first person dor, “to cut wood, carve”. Ciorănescu compares Albanian…
echipă
It is borrowed from French équipe (“team, crew”), a neologism of the late 19th century. The French noun comes from Middle French equippe, from the verb equipper “to equip”. Ciorănescu lists echipa…
episod
It is borrowed from French épisode, the source DEX, DELR and Wiktionary give. DELR also names German Episode and Italian episodio. DLR and Tiktin add Modern Greek ἐπεισόδιον (epeisódion); DELR…
evident
It is borrowed from French évident, together with Latin ēvidens (“visible, clear”), as DELR, MDA2, the DLR and DEX 2009 give it; DELR adds Italian evidente, which Tiktin names alone. Wiktionary…
exact
It is borrowed from French exact, partly borrowed from Latin exāctus (“precise, exact”), the two sources that DEX, MDA2, DELR and the DLR give together. Tiktin and Wiktionary name only French…
exista
It is borrowed from French exister, with the learned Latin existō beside it: DELR, DEX, DLR and MDA2 all give both sources. The Latin verb, also spelled exsistō, meant “to rise, step out; to appear…
explica
It is borrowed from Latin explicō (“to unfold, disentangle”), and also borrowed from French expliquer (“to explain”). DELR and the DLR also name Italian esplicare; MDA2, DEX and Wiktionary give…
film
It is borrowed from French film, the source DEX, MDA2, NODEX, MDN, DILF and the DLRM give. Scriban takes it straight from English, and Wiktionary allows German Film beside French. The French word…
fin
1. The adjective meaning “fine” is borrowed from French fin. The neologism dictionaries name French and Italian fino as its sources. Ciorănescu takes it from fino, probably through the East. He…
formă
It is borrowed from French forme, with Latin forma beside it, in MDA2 and DEX, and Wiktionary gives Latin and French. Ciorănescu takes it from Latin in the 17th century and Tiktin from Latin, partly…
funcționa
It is borrowed from French fonctionner, adapted after funcție. The French verb is formed on fonction, from Latin functiō (“performance”).
general
It is borrowed from French général, with Latin generālis (“of a kind; general”) as a second model for the adjective, as DEX and MDA2 give it. Ciorănescu derives the adjective from the French word…