cămin

Forms

cămin n (plural căminuri)^[1] The plural is căminuri in the senses “fireplace, stove, chimney” and cămine in “home” and “hostel”.^[2] A variant chimini occurs in the 17th century: „ca argintul care-i pren foc purtat și în chimini l-au curățit” “like silver that is passed through fire and refined in the furnace”.^[3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written кэмин.^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic камина (kamina, “furnace, hearth”) according to the DA, MDA2, DEX and DELR; the Slavonic word is from Greek.^{[4][5][2][6][7]} The DA and CADE also name Bulgarian камина (kamina), which the BER derives from Greek.^[4][8][9] Ciorănescu gives Modern Greek κάμινος (káminos) or καμίνη (kamíni) as the source, perhaps through Slavonic, and says the word could equally come from Slavonic, Latin camīnus or Greek;^[10][11] Tiktin likewise speaks of a Greek or Latin source through several intermediaries.^[10][11] DELR follows the Slavonic source and lists the others as possible.^[6]

The Greek word, Ancient Greek κάμινος (káminos, “furnace, kiln”), is of unknown origin;^[12][13] Beekes takes it as perhaps Pre-Greek.^[12][13] It passed into Latin, the source of Italian camino and Occitan camin.^[10][14][15] The modern senses “fireplace” and “home” follow French cheminée and foyer.^[6] Pascu takes Aromanian cîmińă “charcoal kiln” from Latin, but the REW derives it from Greek.^[16][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1583.^[11] DELR and MDA2 date it from Dosoftei's lives of the saints (1682–1686), where it is a furnace: „Fu aruncat în cămin înfocat” “he was thrown into a burning furnace”, glossed there as cuptoriu de foc.^[6][5][4]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the word meant a furnace or oven, a hearth and the smith's forge; the Bucharest Bible of 1688 has „cuptoare și căminuri”.^[4][3] A legal sense, the family estate after which a lineage was named, appears in Caragea's law code.^[4][11] The modern literary language took the sense “open fireplace” from French cheminée, and the figurative “parental home, family” from foyer: Alecsandri, Odobescu and Eminescu write of the fire in the cămin.^[4][6] The 20th century added the names of institutions: cămin cultural “village cultural centre”, founded in the 1920s, cămin studențesc “student hall of residence” and cămin de copii.^[2][5] In engineering it is a manhole on a water pipe or sewer.^[2]

Timeline

• 1583 – the first record Tiktin gives.^[11]
• 1682-1686 – cămin “furnace” in Dosoftei's lives of the saints.^[6][5]
• 1688 – căminuri in the Bucharest Bible (Leviticus 11:35).^[17]
• 1825 – “smith's forge” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[18]
• 1835 – the diminutive căminaș.^[6]
• 1975 – căminist “student living in a hall of residence”.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fireplace: a low stove built against the wall of a room, with a wide open hearth.^[2][1]
2. An oven or hearth; a chimney through which smoke escapes.^[2][5]
3. (figurative) The parental home; by extension, family: S-a întors la căminul lui după mulți ani.^[2][5]
4. The name of social and cultural institutions: cămin studențesc, a student hostel or dormitory;^[2][5][1] cămin cultural, a village cultural centre;^[2][5][1] cămin de copii, a boarding nursery.^[2][5][1]
5. A small underground chamber with a cast-iron cover on a water main or sewer, giving access to it; a manhole.^[2][5]

Word family

• căminaș
• căminete
• cămineț
• căminist

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 158
3. ^ a b Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 94
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. cămin
5. ^ 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, 324
6. ^ 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. cămin
7. ^ Miklosich, Franz (1862–1865), Lexicon palaeoslovenico-graeco-latinum emendatum auctum, Vindobonae: Braumüller
8. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. cămin
9. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 2, 192
10. ^ 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. cămin
11. ^ 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. cămin
12. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 624
14. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1548
16. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 64
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Leviticus 11:35
18. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 91