Old Romanian had two infinitives, just like the language it descends from: a short one (a cânta) and a long one (cântare). The short infinitive became the verbal infinitive you meet in the dictionary. The long infinitive went somewhere unexpected: it stopped being a verb form at all and turned into a vast class of feminine abstract nouns. Mâncare (food), plăcere (pleasure), iubire (love), venire (arrival), părere (opinion), citire (reading) — these all look like infinitives and historically were, but in the modern language they behave like ordinary nouns: they take articles, form plurals, and head noun phrases. This page shows you how to see them for what they are, which is one of the most efficient vocabulary shortcuts in Romanian.
From verb form to noun
The long infinitive is formed by adding -re to the short infinitive: a cânta → cântare, a vedea → vedere, a merge → mergere, a iubi → iubire. The result is grammatically a noun — and, decisively, it is feminine. This is why Romanian dictionaries cite verbs with the particle a (a citi) rather than with the bare form: the bare -re form was already taken by the noun.
Citirea contractului mi-a luat o oră.
Reading the contract took me an hour.
Cu mare plăcere îți împrumut cartea.
I'll happily lend you the book (with great pleasure).
They decline like feminine nouns
This is the proof that they are nouns and not verb forms: they inflect for the four feminine noun categories — indefinite singular, definite singular, indefinite plural, definite plural — exactly like any other feminine noun in -e.
| Noun | Indef. sg. | Def. sg. | Indef. pl. | Def. pl. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pleasure | o plăcere | plăcerea | plăceri | plăcerile |
| opinion | o părere | părerea | păreri | părerile |
| arrival | o venire | venirea | veniri | venirile |
| love | o iubire | iubirea | iubiri | iubirile |
A genuine verb form cannot do any of this — you cannot pluralize a citi or stick a definite article on it. The moment you see plăceri or părerea, you are looking at a noun.
Părerea mea este că ar trebui să așteptăm.
My opinion is that we should wait.
Una dintre marile mele plăceri este să citesc seara.
One of my great pleasures is reading in the evening.
M-am săturat de venirile și plecările lui la ore târzii.
I'm tired of his comings and goings at late hours.
A vocabulary engine, not a curiosity
Because the pattern is regular, an enormous number of common abstract nouns are simply lexicalized long infinitives. Recognizing the -re suffix lets you decode words you have never seen, and lets you build the noun yourself from a verb you already know.
| Verb | Long infinitive (noun) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| a mânca | mâncare | food / eating |
| a iubi | iubire | love |
| a simți | simțire | feeling, sentience |
| a vedea | vedere | sight, view, postcard |
| a ști | știre | (piece of) news |
| a naște | naștere | birth |
| a muri | moarte | (irregular — see note) death |
| a primi | primire | reception, welcome |
La naștere, copilul cântărea trei kilograme.
At birth, the baby weighed three kilos.
Ți-am trimis o vedere din Veneția.
I sent you a postcard from Venice.
Ai văzut ultima știre despre alegeri?
Did you see the latest news about the elections?
Notice the semantic drift: vedere started as "the act of seeing" and now also means a "view" and a "postcard"; știre drifted from "knowing" to "a piece of news." This drift is the signature of a fully lexicalized noun — it has wandered away from the bare meaning of the verb, which a true verb form never does.
When a residual verbal flavor survives
A small number of -re nouns keep a faint verbal force in formal or academic registers, where they head a construction with an object, much like an English gerund ("the building of the bridge"). This is bookish and you will mostly meet it in legal, technical, or scholarly prose.
Construirea podului a durat trei ani.
The building of the bridge took three years.
Respectarea regulilor este obligatorie.
Compliance with the rules is mandatory.
Even here the word is grammatically a noun (note the definite article -a in construirea, respectarea) — it just happens to take a complement in the genitive. Compare the everyday alternative, which uses a finite clause: trebuie să respecți regulile (you must follow the rules).
Common Mistakes
❌ Vreau citire cartea.
Wrong — '-re' words are nouns; you cannot use 'citire' as a verb. Use the verb.
✅ Vreau să citesc cartea.
I want to read the book.
❌ Îmi place mâncare românească.
Wrong — 'mâncare' is a countable/definable noun and needs an article here.
✅ Îmi place mâncarea românească.
I like Romanian food.
❌ Care e parerea ta?
Wrong spelling — the stressed vowel is 'ă': părerea.
✅ Care e părerea ta?
What's your opinion?
❌ Am multe placeri în viață.
Wrong spelling — the noun is 'plăcere', plural 'plăceri', with 'ă'.
✅ Am multe plăceri în viață.
I have many pleasures in life.
❌ El a venire acasă.
Wrong — 'venire' is a noun; the past tense of 'a veni' is 'a venit'.
✅ El a venit acasă.
He came home.
Key Takeaways
- The long infinitive (-re) has almost entirely become a class of feminine abstract nouns.
- These nouns decline fully (o plăcere → plăcerea → plăceri → plăcerile); verb forms cannot.
- The conversion is the historical reason Romanian cites verbs with the particle a.
- Recognizing -re as a deverbal-noun suffix decodes a large stock of abstract vocabulary at a glance.
- A residual verbal use survives only in formal prose (construirea podului), but the word is still grammatically a noun.
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- The Long and Short InfinitiveA2 — Romanian's two infinitives — the short infinitive with the particle 'a' (a cânta) used as the verbal infinitive, and the long infinitive (cântare) that has largely turned into a feminine noun.
- Using the Short InfinitiveB1 — Where the short infinitive (a face) survives in modern Romanian — chiefly after prepositions in formal writing — and why să has replaced it almost everywhere else.
- The Gerunziu: FormationB1 — How to form the Romanian gerund with -ând or -ind, why the choice is phonologically predictable, and why it is never the English be + -ing progressive.
- Finite vs Non-Finite FormsB1 — The difference between Romanian's finite forms (which carry person, number, and tense) and its four non-finite forms — infinitive, gerund, participle, and the distinctively Romanian supine.
- Conjunctiv vs Infinitive: The Balkan ChoiceB1 — When Romanian uses a să-conjunctiv where its Romance cousins use the infinitive, and the handful of constructions where the infinitive survives — the structural signature of Romanian.