bursă

Forms

bursă f (plural burse)^[1] An older variant is borsă, taken from Italian;^[2][3][4] Scriban says it was the popular form in the ports.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French bourse.^{[5][6][2][7][3][1]} The French word continues Old French borse, from Late Latin bursa (“leather; leather bag”) (also byrsa), which was borrowed from Ancient Greek βύρσα (búrsa, “hide, skin”).^[2][8][1] In Medieval Latin the word meant a leather bag, especially for money, and later, from the 13th century, a grant or pension.^[8]

The sense “stock exchange” has an uncertain origin: one view takes it from Dutch beurs, from Ter Beurze, the inn of the Van der Burse family in Bruges where merchants and bankers met; the other takes it as the same word as “purse”, as in the medieval French phrase “money current in the purse”.^[2] Scriban tells the Bruges story too.^[4] The variant borsă is from Italian borsa.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the exchange sense, as borsă, in Dinicu Golescu's account of his travels, 1826.^[2][3] The sense “small bag for money, purse” follows in Săulescu in 1832.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Romanian took all of the French word's main senses within a few decades: a purse, an exchange for trading in securities and goods, and a grant to a pupil or student.^[3][2] The “purse” sense is now obsolete.^[2] Maiorescu used the scholarship sense in his parliamentary speeches, of a state that offers pupils burse to be brought up free of charge,^[6][9] and bursier “holder of a grant” is recorded from 1847.^[2] Iorga wrote of the jocul de bursă “stock-exchange speculation” of the Romanian princes.^[9]

The anatomical sense, a sac filled with fluid, came with the medical vocabulary.^[2][10] Scriban also records the word as a Turkish sum of 500 old lei, the sense of Romanian pungă.^[4]

Timeline

• 1826 – borsă “stock exchange” in Dinicu Golescu, the first record.^[2][3]
• 1832 – “purse” in Săulescu.^[2]
• 1847 – bursier “grant holder”.^[2]
• 1864 – semibursieră “girl with a half grant” in Bolintineanu.^[2]
• 1866 – “grant, scholarship” in Maiorescu's parliamentary speeches.^[6][9]
• 1873 – debursa “to pay out”, from French.^[2]
• 1905 – jocul de bursă “speculation on the exchange” in Iorga.^[6][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A scholarship, a (monthly) allowance that the state or an institution gives a pupil or student for living costs, or a researcher or teacher for further training; also free board given to a pupil or student.^[5][6][1]
2. (anatomy) A bursa, a sac-like structure filled with fluid: bursă seroasă “serous bursa”.^[10][11]
3. (obsolete) A purse, a small bag for money.^[2][3]
4. A stock exchange, an organized market where securities, currencies and certain goods are traded: bursă de valori “stock exchange”.^[5][6][1]
5. a juca la bursă “to play the market”: to buy and resell securities to profit from changes in price.^[5][6]
6. bursă neagră “black market”, illicit trade;^[5][6] bursa muncii “labour exchange”, an office that records requests for work and arranges jobs.^[5][6]

Word family

• bursier
• semibursier
• debursa

Related words

• rambursa
• borsetă
• pungă

Usage notes

DEX, MDA2, DELR and the DLRLC split the word into two headwords, bursă¹ “grant;^{[5][6][2][12]} (dated) purse” and bursă² “stock exchange”;^{[5][6][2][12]} Ciorănescu, the DA and Tiktin treat it as one word, and both are from French bourse.^[7][9][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 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. bursă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. bursă
4. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 209
5. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 127
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 264
7. ^ a b 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. bursă
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d e 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. bursă
10. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. bursă
11. ^ Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. bursă
12. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 302