șofer

Forms

șofer m (plural șoferi, feminine equivalent șoferiță)^[1] Writers between the wars also spelled it in the French way, șofeur: „Șofeurul se apropiase și aștepta lângă automobil” “the chauffeur had come up and was waiting by the car” (Cezar Petrescu).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French chauffeur.^[4][5][2][1] It was formed in French from chauffer with the suffix -eur: it first meant a man who tends a fire or a boiler, and in 1896 it began to be used for the driver of an automobile.^[6][1] The verb, “to heat”, goes back to Latin calefaciō (“to make warm”), which makes Romanian cald a distant relative.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 takes its first record from Candrea's dictionary in CADE, where the word means a person who drives a car.^[4] Șăineanu's dictionary of 1929 has it too, as a driver of an automobile, with the French word beside it.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word kept the sense it had in French when it was borrowed: a person, usually trained for it, who drives a motor vehicle.^[5][2] Rebreanu and Camil Petrescu use it in their novels for the driver of a private car.^[2] Today it covers drivers of any motor vehicle, including lorries and buses.^[9][10] Compounds such as șofer-încercător, a driver who tests new cars before they are sold, appear in the press from 1971.^[11] A woman driver is a șoferiță.^[1]

Timeline

• 1896 – French chauffeur used for the driver of an automobile.^[6]
• 1926 – șofer in Candrea's dictionary in CADE, the first record.^[4]
• 1929 – in Șăineanu's dictionary.^[8]
• 1971 – șofer-încercător “test driver”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A driver: a person qualified to drive a motor vehicle, a car, a lorry or a bus.^[5][4][1]
2. A chauffeur, someone employed to drive another person around.^[1]

Word family

• șofereasă
• șoferie
• șoferiță

Related words

• cald
• French chauffeur

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. șofer
3. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 349
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1111
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1091
6. ^ a b Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
7. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 23
8. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 601
9. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. șofer
10. ^ Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. s.v. șofer
11. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. șofer