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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word bord

bord1 side of a ship

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1847 Heliade-Rădulescu
Borrowed from
French bord
Ultimate origin
Frankish *bord
Etymology tree of bord1
inherited borrowed derived
French bord
Romanian bord
Spanish borde
Spanish bordo

Forms

bord n (plural borduri)[1]

Etymology

The word for the side of a ship is borrowed from French bord, a 19th-century neologism.[2][3][4][5][1] The French word is a Germanic borrowing;[2][6] DELR compares Old Norse borð, Old English bord, Dutch boord and Old High German bort, and the DHLF traces it to Frankish *bord.[2][6] The neologism dictionaries add Italian bordo and German Bord as models.[7][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is in Ion Heliade-Rădulescu, 1847, and Tiktin also dates it to 1847.[2][4] The sense was the side of a vessel and, in la bord and pe bord, “on board”.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Taken from French à bord and de bord came the senses “on board a ship” and, by extension, “on board an aircraft”, and the attributive de bord “of navigation”, as in jurnal de bord “logbook”.[2][5] A arunca peste bord “to throw overboard” came to mean “to discard as useless”.[5][10]

The French tableau de bord gave tablou de bord “dashboard”, and by ellipsis bord itself now names the dashboard of a car or the instrument panel of an aircraft, recorded from 1983.[2][11] For a while it also meant the brim of a hat, now bor: Caragiale's guest „pune mâna pe bordul pălăriei” “puts his hand on the brim of his hat”.[12][10]

Timeline

  • 1829 – babord “port side”.[2]
  • 1832 – bordură “border”.[2]
  • 1847 – bord in Heliade-Rădulescu, the first record.[2][4]
  • 1848 – tribord “starboard”, in Negulici.[2]
  • 1851 – deborda “to overflow”.[2]
  • 1868 – bordaj “planking of a ship”.[2]
  • 1870 – transborda “to transship”.[2]
  • 1901 – the sense “hat brim” in Caragiale's Momente.[10][12]
  • 1983 – bord “dashboard” in the press.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Each of the two sides of the deck of a ship.[5][1] Pe (la) bord: aboard a ship or an aircraft;[5] jurnal de bord: logbook.[5][1]
  2. The dashboard of a car, the instrument panel of an aircraft.[2][11]
  3. (rare) The edge of an object or of a profile; the edge of an aircraft wing.[10][7]
  4. (rare, dated) A hat brim; the seashore.[10]

Word family

  • babord
  • tribord
  • bordaj
  • bordură
  • deborda
  • transborda

bord2 boulder

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1832 Bojincă, quoted at second hand

Forms

bord m (plural borzi)[10]

Etymology

The regional word for a boulder is of unknown origin.[2][4][12][3] Diculescu derived it from Vulgar Latin *bolidus, from Ancient Greek βωλώδης (bōlṓdēs, “lumpy”), a derivative of βῶλος (bôlos, “clod of earth”), and Giuglea adopted this view and made the word the base of bordei.[3][2] Ciorănescu thought it might be a spontaneous formation from the stem of bolf.[3][2] Rohr proposed a substrate word from Proto-Indo-European *bʰordʰo- (“edge”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is of 1832, from Bojincă, cited at second hand, with the sense “boulder”.[2] Tiktin dates it to 1891, in a collection of folk songs: „La toată piatra Gușata, Și la tot bordu' Nărodi'”.[4][12]

Semantic evolution

It is a word of Banat, Oltenia and Transylvania, meaning “boulder, block of rock” and “clod of dried, hardened earth”.[2][10][12] In the Hațeg area it also names a pumpkin, by its shape.[2][13]

Timeline

  • 1832 – the first record, from Bojincă.[2]
  • 1891 – in a collection of folk songs.[4]
  • 1893 – borzii de pe munți “the boulders on the mountains” in the Revista critică literară.[10][12]
  • 1894 – the augmentative bordan.[2]
  • 1895 – bordos “full of boulders”.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (regional: Transylvania, Banat, Oltenia) A boulder, a block of rock; a clod of dried earth.[10][2][14]
  2. (regional, Hațeg) A pumpkin.[10][12]

Word family

  • bordan
  • bordos

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 k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 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. bord
  3. ^ a b c d 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. bord
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. bord
  5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 113
  6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. bord
  8. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. bord
  9. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. bord
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 232
  11. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. bord
  12. ^ a b c d e f g 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. bord
  13. ^ Densusianu, Ovid (1915), Graiul din Țara Hațegului, București: Socec, p. 308
  14. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. bord

Related etymologies

  • cap · also from French
  • dura · also from French
  • pur · also from French
  • pană · also from French
  • pat · also from French
  • masă · also from French
  • lac · also from French
  • primar · also from French
Cite this entry

“Bord.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/bord. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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