călători

Forms

călători (third-person singular present călătorește, past participle călătorit), 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Romanian călător (“traveller”), made into a verb of the fourth conjugation with -esc.^{[2][3][4][5][1]}

The source of călător itself is debated.^[6] Most dictionaries derive it from cale “road, way”, just as Albanian udhëtar (“traveller”) comes from udhë (“road”) and Latin viātor (“traveller”) from via (“road”).^[2][6] Ciorănescu objects that the suffix -tor is normally added to verbs, and that an agent noun does not normally give a verb in turn; he suggests a Latin verb Vulgar Latin *caballāre or *caballitāre “to ride”, from caballus (“horse”), comparing German reisen (“to travel”) and reiten (“to ride”).^[6] Tiktin started from a verb *căla, from Vulgar Latin *callāre and callis (“path”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and DELR date the verb to a document of 1639, with the sense “to travel, to make a longer journey”.^[5][2] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss călătoresc with Old Church Slavonic шествовати (šestvovati) “to walk, journey”, from about 1660.^[7] The Bible of 1688 has the verb, for example călătorind “travelling” in the Acts of the Apostles (10:9).^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

From “to travel, to be on the road” the verb was extended to anything that moves over a long way: the stars that travel across the sky in Alecsandri's verse, clouds, and migrating birds that go south in autumn.^[3][10][11] The DA (1913–1949) recommended it in place of the French loan voiaja.^[3]

The reflexive a se călători “to go away, leave” gave the figurative senses “to come to an end” (of days) and “to die”, now regional;^[3][4][5] Creangă writes that the day se călători “passed”.^[3][4][5] A folk couplet from Maramureș says that when a man grows old, longing se călătorește “departs”.^[12] In folk poetry the verb could also be transitive, with the horse carrying its rider: calu' mă călătorește “my horse carries me on my way”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1561 – the noun călător “traveller”.^[2]
• 1639 – călători in a document, the first record.^[5][2]
• 1643 – călătorie “journey”.^[2]
• c. 1660 – călătoresc in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[7]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible.^[8][9]
• 1801 – călătoresc, glossed Latin itinero, Hungarian utazom and German reisen, in Klein's dictionary.^[13]
• 1913 – the verbal noun călătorit.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) to travel, to journey: to make a trip to a distant place; to be on the road.^[4][9][1]
2. (of birds) to migrate to warmer lands;^[3][10] (poetic) to move across the sky.^[3][10]
3. (reflexive, figurative, regional) to come to an end, to pass; to die.^[4][9][12]

Related words

• cale
• călător
• călătorie

Usage notes

The participle călătorit is also an adjective, “much travelled”: om învățat și călătorit.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. cale
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. călători
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 156
5. ^ 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. călători
6. ^ 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. călător
7. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
8. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Faptele Apostolilor 10:9
9. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 319
10. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 357
12. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. călători
13. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 323