alegere

Forms

alegere f (plural alegeri)^[1] Varlaam's Cazania (1643) spells it aledgere: „spre aledgerea necurățiilor noastre” “for the sorting out of our impurities”.^[2] A law book of 1652 has aleagere: „Am făcut aleagere de în multe și bogate pravile” “we have made a selection from many rich law books”.^[2]

Etymology

It is the long infinitive of alege (“to choose”), used as a noun: from Romanian alege + -re.^[2][1][3] Hasdeu called it the substantivised infinitive of the verb, an abstract noun that carries nearly all the verb's senses.^[4] The verb itself is from Latin allegō (“to choose”).^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the noun to a document of 1560.^[3] MDA2's first record is Varlaam's Cazania of 1643, where it means the separating or sorting out of something.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The old senses follow the verb: a separating of substances (in Transylvania the separating of butter from whey), a sorting of seeds, a choosing between things, and in old law the deciding of a case.^[2][6] MDA2 also records the old sense of marking out the boundaries of an estate.^[6]

The political sense is old too: a chrysobull of Constantin Brâncoveanu of 1695 says he came to the throne „dentru alégerea și voința a toată boerimea țărăi” “by the choice and will of all the boyars of the country”.^[4] In the 19th century the word became the term for voting: Damé gives alegerile pentru Senat “the elections for the Senate”,^[7] Barcianu alegere secretă “secret ballot” and drept de alegere “right to vote”,^[8] and today the plural alegeri is the usual word for elections.^[3][9]

Timeline

• 1560 – first record, in a document.^[3]
• 1643 – aledgerea “sorting out” in Varlaam's Cazania.^[2][6]
• 1652 – aleagere “selection” in a law book.^[2]
• 1695 – the choice of a prince by the boyars, in a chrysobull of Constantin Brâncoveanu.^[4]
• 1801 – glossed Latin electio in Klein's dictionary.^[10]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda, glossed Latin electio, selectio and German Wahl.^[11]
• 1886 – alegere secretă “secret ballot” in Barcianu.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. choice, selection: the act of choosing, and what is chosen;^[9][1] fără alegere “at random”, la alegere “as one pleases”.^[9][1]
2. (chiefly in the plural) An election: the choosing by vote of the members of a state body or organisation.^[9][1]
3. (dated) A separating of substances or of the parts of something.^[6][2]

Related words

• ales
• alegător

Usage notes

In Moldavian texts of the 1770s alegere also meant “dialogue, discussion”, as in the title of a translation of Bertoldo; the DLRLV takes this sense from Latin.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. alegere
3. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. alegere
4. ^ a b c Hasdeu, B. P. (1886–1898), Etymologicum Magnum Romaniae: dicționarul limbei istorice și poporane a românilor, 4 vols. (A–Bărbat), București: Socec, p. s.v. alegere
5. ^ 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. alege
6. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 39
7. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. alegere
8. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 18
9. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 27
10. ^ 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. 300
11. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 13
12. ^ Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 48