Learn Romanian › avea

avea

to have /aˈve.a/

verb#2 most common

Also: to possess, to own, to be (with age, need, etc.)

Example sentences

Eu am o pisică.
I have a cat.
Ai un pix?
Do you have a pen?
Ea are treizeci de ani.
She is thirty years old.
Noi avem nevoie de timp să ne gândim.
We need time to think it over.
Dacă aș fi avut mai multă experiență, aș fi acceptat oferta.
If I had had more experience, I would have accepted the offer.
Se pare că nu ar fi avut de ales în privința aceasta.
It seems he would not have had a choice in this matter.

Conjugation

Present ActiveSimple Past ActiveSimple Future Active
1sgamavuivoi avea
2sgaiavușivei avea
3sgareavuva avea
1plavemavurămvom avea
2plavețiavurățiveți avea
3plauavurăvor avea

Word family

averewealth, fortune, estate
avutwealthy, well-off
avuțiewealth, riches (literary)
de-avutulone's holdings or property

Etymology

Avea descends from Latin habere, "to have," through the regular Vulgar Latin loss of intervocalic b and the shift of the resulting vowel cluster into the diphthong -ea that marks Romanian's second infinitive class. This same Latin verb gave the other Romance languages their own words for "to have." In Romanian it took on a second job as the auxiliary that builds the compound past tense, so am, ai, are, and so on appear constantly in ordinary speech.

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More Romanian words

fito benunodeof/fromto (subjunctive marker introducing a dependent clause, roughly "that")una / an (indefinite article, masculine/neuter)euItuyou (singular, informal)