cuvânt
Romanian
Etymology
From Latin conventus (“convened, assembled; agreement, coming together, gathering”). The sense may have shifted from that of "a coming together, agreement, assembly" to that of "word" because at important assemblies and gatherings in the past, there was an exchange of words and ideas. Cf. also the related Albanian kuvend (which may have influenced its meaning) and Aromanian cuvendã, and also Greek κουβέντα (kouvénta, “conversation; word, phrase”), derived from the same Latin word. A similar semantic shift occurred in Macedonian (another member of the Balkan sprachbund), where збор (zbor), deriving from the Slavic word for "meeting, gathering, assembly", came to mean "word". This may have been adopted from nearby speakers of Albanian or proto-Romanian[1].
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [kuˈvɨnt]
Noun
cuvânt n (plural cuvinte)
- word
Declension
| singular | plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| indefinite articulation | definite articulation | indefinite articulation | definite articulation | |
| nominative/accusative | (un) cuvânt | cuvântul | (niște) cuvinte | cuvintele |
| genitive/dative | (unui) cuvânt | cuvântului | (unor) cuvinte | cuvintelor |
| vocative | cuvântule | cuvintelor | ||
Synonyms
- vorbă
Related terms
- cuvânta
- cuveni
References
- https://dexonline.ro/articol/Despre_leg%C4%83turile_rom%C3%A2nei_cu_albaneza
Further reading
- cuvânt in DEX online - Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)