avea habar

Romanian

Etymology

Partial calque of Ottoman Turkish خبری اولمق (haberi olmak).

Pronunciation

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Verb

a avea habar (third-person singular present are habar, past participle avut habar) 2nd conj.

1. (informal, chiefly in the negative) to have a clue

Usage notes

The expression can be negated in two ways:

• The grammatically expected way is for the object habar to follow the verb: nu are/n-are habar (“has no clue”), nu a/n-a avut habar (“had no clue”).
• As part of a fixed expression, habar can directly precede the negated verb: habar nu are/n-are (“has no clue”), habar nu a/n-a avut (“had no clue”).

The latter is the most common choice, but such word order is not usual otherwise.