ambasadă

Forms

ambasadă f (plural ambasade)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French ambassade (“embassy”), a loanword of the 19th century.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} French took it from Italian ambasciata, which comes from Old Occitan ambaissada, a derivative of ambaissa.^[2][6] That goes back to Medieval Latin ambactia (“service, office”), a Germanic loanword in Latin, itself ultimately from the Gaulish word for a servant that Ennius and Caesar wrote as ambactus.^[2][6]

The agent noun ambasador came separately, earlier, from ambassadeur, with variants such as ambașador and ambașator from ambasciatore.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the noun from 1827.^[4] DELR's first record is in Constantin Negruzzi (1837), with the sense “diplomatic representation to the government of a foreign country”;^[2] the DA quotes him: “my affairs had got into disorder in the embassies”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The DA glosses the word with the native solie “mission, embassy”, and distinguishes the permanent mission of a great power from the legație “legation” of a smaller state: “England has an embassy in Vienna, Romania a legation”.^[7] By extension it meant the staff of the mission and the building that houses it.^[7][3] In the 19th century it also meant a deputation sent to a ruler, a sense that the dictionaries now give as dated or figurative;^[8][9][10] Bălcescu uses it of the missions Ștefan cel Mare gave his chancellor Ion Tăutul.^[8][9][10]

Timeline

• 1794 – ambașador “ambassador” in Văcărescu's history.^[2]
• 1827 – ambasadă, the first record.^[4]
• 1837 – in Constantin Negruzzi.^[2]
• 1839 – ambasadoreasă “ambassador's wife”.^[2]
• 1840 – ambasadriță, from ambassadrice.^[2]
• 1907 – ambasadoare “woman ambassador; ambassador's wife”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An embassy: a country's diplomatic representation to the government of another, headed by an ambassador.^[5][3][1]
2. The building where such a representation has its seat.^[5][3]
3. The staff of an embassy.^[3][10]
4. The mission or office of an ambassador;^[11][10] (figurative) an errand on someone's behalf.^[11][10]

Related words

• ambasador
• solie

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. ambasadă
3. ^ 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, 51
4. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. ambasadă
5. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 34
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c 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. ambasadă
8. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 21
9. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 73
10. ^ a b c d e Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. ambasadă
11. ^ a b Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 24