câmp

Forms

câmp n (plural câmpuri)^[1] Besides the neuter plural câmpuri, a masculine plural câmpi survives mostly in phrases such as a bate câmpii and a-și lua câmpii.^[2][3] An old record of 1591 has „dîn vatra satului și din câmpu și din arină” “from the village hearth, the field and the ploughland”.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin campus (“plain, field”), a word inherited across the Romance languages.^{[5][2][6][7][1]} DELR adds that the modern senses in physics, military language, technology and linguistics follow French champ.^[5] It survives as Aromanian cãmpu and Megleno-Romanian cǫmp.^[5][2][8] The Romance cognates include Dalmatian kuomp, Italian campo, Sardinian kampu, Catalan camp, Spanish campo and Portuguese campo.^[2][9][10]

The Latin word has no secure etymology: it has been compared with Ancient Greek κάμπτω (kámptō, “to bend”), but de Vaan suspects a European substrate word of agriculture.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the place name Câmpulung, about 1300.^[5][12] In Romanian texts it appears in the early 16th-century Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (câmpului, Psalm 103:18),^[13] and a document of 1591 lists land din câmpu “from the field” beside the village hearth and the ploughland.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is open, level land outside the village, without trees, as opposed to the hills, the forest and the settlement; from it came cultivated land and the fields around a village as a whole.^[4][3] Munca câmpului is farm work.^[3]

The plural câmpi lives on in idioms: a lua câmpii, literally “to take to the fields”, meant to flee across country, then to run off in despair;^[12][6] Pușcariu compares the Albanian idiom of “taking to the mountains”.^[12][6] A bate câmpii means to ramble off the subject.^[12][3]

From the sense “space where something happens” (câmp de luptă “battlefield”, câmp de activitate “field of activity”) came the modern technical senses, modelled on French: the electric and magnetic field of physics, the visual field, the surgical field and the ground of a painting.^[5][3][14] Ciorănescu reports Candrea's view that Ukrainian words for a small island come from Romanian.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – the place name Câmpulung.^[5][12]
• 1456 – câmpean “dweller of the plain” as a personal name.^[5]
• early 16th century – câmpului in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[13]
• 1550 – the diminutive câmpușor in a place name.^[5]
• 1591 – câmpu “field” in a document.^[4]
• 1646 – câmpenesc “rustic”.^[5]
• c. 1650 – câmpie “plain”.^[5]
• 1978 – contracâmp “reverse shot”, after French.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wide stretch of level land, a plain; farmland, the fields around a village.^[3][1]
2. Open country outside a settlement: în plin câmp “in the open”.^[3][7]
3. An area where an activity takes place: câmp de luptă “battlefield”, câmp de activitate “field of activity”.^[3]
4. (physics) A field: a region of space in which a force acts on bodies, as in câmp electric and câmp magnetic.^[3][14]
5. The background of a painting, an engraving or an ornament.^[3][2]

Word family

• câmpeancă
• câmpenesc
• câmpenește
• câmpesc
• câmpie
• câmpioară
• câmpurel
• câmpușor
• contracâmp
• câmpean

Related words

• campus
• Aromanian cãmpu

Usage notes

A bate câmpii means “to stray from the subject, talk nonsense” and a-și lua câmpii “to go off blindly, in despair”: Când a aflat vestea, era să-și ia câmpii.^[3][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. cîmp
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 162
4. ^ a b c d 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. câmp
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. câmp
6. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 30
7. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 340
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 286
9. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1563
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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. câmp
13. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 103:18
14. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. câmp
15. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. câmp