înălțime

Forms

înălțime f (plural înălțimi)^[1] Old texts also write înnălțime: „Nici înnălțimea nici adâncul ... să ne osăbească de dragostea lui D-zău” “neither height nor depth … shall part us from the love of God” (a manuscript of 1698).^[2][3] Klein's dictionary of 1801 spells it Inaltzíme and glosses it with Latin altitudo.^[4] A regional variant is nălțime.^[5][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian înalt (“high”) + -ime, the suffix of abstract nouns.^{[3][5][2][1][6]} The adjective înalt continues from Latin altus (“high”); its initial ⟨în-⟩ has been explained by in altō used as an adjective, by the influence of the verb înălța, or by the splitting of phrases such as ⟨în altul (cerului)⟩.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in the 16th-century Codicele Voronețean, in the Epistle of James (1:9).^[2] The Coresi psalter of 1589 has the word in Psalm 74:5.^[8] MDA2's first record is Varlaam's Cazania of 1643.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The concrete senses, “height, altitude” and “high ground, hill”, are those of the old texts: the 1688 Bible gives a man's stature as înălțimea lui de șase coți și o palmă “his height six cubits and a span”.^[2] The plural înălțimi also came to mean “the heavens”, as in Luke 2:14 in the 1688 Bible.^[5][9]

By 1700 it was also a title of princes, which Tiktin glosses with German Hoheit: a text of 1700 has the formula „A slăvitei de D-zău înălțimei tale mai mic și plecat rob” “the least and humble slave of Your Highness, glorified by God”.^[2] Costinescu (1870) still gives it as a title of honour for princes, and DEX marks it as obsolete.^[10][5] The figurative “superiority, excellence” and the phrase a fi la înălțime “to be equal to the situation” are recorded in the modern dictionaries, beside the altitude of a geometric figure and the pitch of a sound.^[5][3]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – first record, in the Codicele Voronețean (James 1:9).^[2]
• 1589 – in the Coresi psalter, Psalm 74:5.^[8]
• 1643 – in Varlaam's Cazania.^[3]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses it for a man's stature.^[2][11]
• 1700 – a title of a prince, “Your Highness”.^[2]
• 1801 – Inaltzíme “altitude” in Klein's dictionary.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. height: the distance from the ground or a level up to a point above it; the size of a thing or a being from its base to its top.^[5][3]
2. (mathematics) the altitude of a figure or solid, the perpendicular from its vertex to the base.^[5]
3. A high point above the ground;^[5][3] (in the plural) the sky; a summit or hill.^[5][3]
4. The pitch of a sound; the capacity of a voice or an instrument to reach high notes.^[5][1]
5. (figurative) intellectual or moral superiority; high rank or esteem: a fi la înălțimea așteptărilor “to live up to expectations”.^[5]
6. (obsolete) a title of address for a person of high rank, “Highness”.^[5][1]

Related words

• înalt
• înălța
• înălțare
• înălțător

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. înălțime
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1201
4. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 376
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 537
6. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 677
7. ^ Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. înalt
8. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 74:5
9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Luke 2:14
10. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 575
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 1 Kingdoms 17:4