bicicletă

Forms

bicicletă f (plural biciclete)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French bicyclette.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Tiktin names both bicycle and the derivative.^[6] The French word is that noun with the diminutive suffix -ette.^[7][1] The base noun was formed from Latin bi- (“two”) and Ancient Greek κύκλος (kúklos, “circle; wheel”), first recorded in 1847, which DELR takes as evidence that it was modelled on tricycle, recorded from 1828.^[2] The derivative is first recorded in 1886, for a new English machine whose larger driving wheel was at the back.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's dictionary has the word in 1895, and DELR's first quotation is from Bassarabescu in 1896, for a two-wheeled vehicle driven by pedals and ridden by one person.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The older high bicycle, with wheels of different sizes, was called biciclu, recorded from 1898.^[2][6] Biciclist “cyclist”, from French bicycliste, is recorded earlier, from 1887.^[2] Șăineanu still defined the bicicletă as a velocipede with two wheels of the same size, and Scriban told its history from the celerifer and the velocifer.^[9][7]

Compounds followed: bicicletă-tandem for two riders and bicicletă-schi, a ski with handlebars, recorded in 1966.^[4][10] Ironically the word also names glasses.^[3][11] The clipped biclă dates from 2006.^[2]

Timeline

• 1895 – bicicletă in Tiktin's dictionary, the first record.^[6]
• 1896 – bicicletă in Bassarabescu.^[2]
• 1898 – biciclu, the high bicycle.^[2]
• 1966 – bicicletă-schi.^[10]
• 2006 – the colloquial biclă.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bicycle: a vehicle with two wheels driven by two pedals, usually for one person;^[4][5] bicicletă-tandem “tandem bicycle”.^[4][5]
2. (figurative, ironic) Glasses.^[5][11][3]

Word family

• biciclist
• biciclistă
• biclă
• hidrobicicletă

Related words

• biciclu
• tricicletă
• ciclist
• French bicyclette

Usage notes

Tiktin records the regional bițiclu in Transylvania.^[6] The colloquial phrase a-i lua cuiva caii de la bicicletă “to take the horses off someone's bicycle” means that nothing can be done to someone.^[5][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. bicicletă
3. ^ a b c 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. bicicletă
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 102
5. ^ 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, 203
6. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. bicicletă
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 168
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 64
10. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. bicicletă
11. ^ a b c Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. bicicletă