alia

Forms

alia (third-person singular present aliază, past participle aliat), 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French allier (“to ally; to alloy”), as all the dictionaries agree.^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} The French verb first meant “to join, bind” and comes from Latin alligō (“to bind to”), formed from ad- and ligō (“to bind”).^[2][7]

Several members of its family came separately from French: aliaj from French alliage, alianță from alliance, aliat from allié and Italian alleato.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is in I. Golescu's Condica (c. 1832), with the reflexive sense of states that make a treaty to act together.^[2] Tiktin's first record is of 1835.^[5] The family is older: alianță is recorded about 1770 and aliat in 1794.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Both French senses came with the verb: to make an alliance and to fuse metals.^[2][5] Of persons and parties it means to join forces for a common action, and an older sense, to become related by marriage, is now rare.^[4][3][6] The metallurgical sense gave the noun aliaj “alloy” (1839) and later the technical compound microalia (1965).^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1770 – alianție, a variant of alianță “alliance”.^[2]
• 1794 – aliat “ally”.^[2]
• c. 1832 – alia in I. Golescu's Condica, the first record of the verb.^[2]
• 1835 – Tiktin's first record.^[5]
• 1839 – aliaj “alloy”.^[2]
• 1872 – Negruzzi: Dimitrie Cantemir „se alie cu Petru a Rusiei” “allied himself with Peter of Russia”.^[3][8]
• 1965 – microalia “to alloy in very small amounts”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive) To make a treaty of alliance.^[4][3]
2. (reflexive) To join with someone for a common action; to form a coalition.^[4][3]
3. (reflexive, dated) To become related to someone by marriage.^[3][6]
4. (transitive) To melt metals together, or metals with non-metals, to make an alloy.^[4][3]

Word family

• aliat
• aliant
• microalia

Related words

• aliaj
• alianță
• lega
• French allier

Usage notes

A separate noun alia (or aliá) “the immigration of Jews to Israel; a community of immigrants there” is a Hebrew loan, aliyah “ascent”, recorded in Romanian from 1991.^[2][9]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. alia
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 41
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 29
5. ^ 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. aliá
6. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. alia
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 61
9. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)