cărare

Forms

cărare f (plural cărări)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin carrāria (“cart road”), short for via carrāria, from carrus (“cart, wagon”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word for “cart” is of Celtic origin.^[6][1] The word survives in Aromanian as cărare, also cãrari in the modern spelling.^[3][7][8] Its cognates are Italian carraia, Occitan carriera, Old French charrière, Catalan carrera, Spanish carrera and Portuguese carreira;^[3][9] Ciorănescu also compares Albanian karrarë.^[3][9] The variant calare was influenced by cale.^[2]

The other Romance languages kept the sense “cart road”, while Romanian narrowed it to “footpath”.^[3] Pușcariu explained the shift by the life of the early Romanians in the mountains, a view Rosetti rejected;^[3] Ciorănescu thinks it more likely that the word was crossed with scālāria, compare scāla (“steep way out”), Sardinian iskela (“path”) and Albanian shkallë.^[3] French carrière, from the same Latin noun, was borrowed as the doublet carieră.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin records Carare as a place name in 1392.^[5] As a common noun it is first found in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century (Psalm 26:17), with the sense “path, way”.^[10] MDA2 dates it from the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), and DELR from about 1650.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Tiktin records the figurative a-și pierde cărarea “to go astray”.^[5] MDA2 still records the obsolete sense “cart road”, the meaning of the Latin word.^[4] The usual sense is a narrow track that can only be walked, as opposed to the cart road.^[11][12]

The parting of the hair, the line left on the scalp by combing it in two directions, is a transferred sense.^[12][5] Colloquial phrases are a umbla pe două cărări “to stagger, to be drunk”, pe toate cărările “everywhere” and a-i scurta cuiva cărările “to kill someone”.^[12][5] DELR records the diminutives cărăruică (c. 1650), cărărușă (1683) and cărăruță (1892), and the verb cărăra “to make paths, stripes” (1871).^[2]

Timeline

• 1392 – Carare, a place name.^[5]
• c. 1500–1520 – cărare in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[10]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană, MDA2's first record.^[4]
• c. 1650 – the diminutive cărăruică.^[2]
• 1683 – the diminutive cărărușă.^[2]
• 1834 – cărărat “striped; staggering”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A path or footpath: a narrow way that can only be walked; generally, a road;^[12][4][1] pe toate cărările “everywhere”;^[12][4][1] a umbla pe două cărări “to stagger, to be drunk”.^[12][4][1]
2. A parting: the line on the head formed by combing the hair in two directions.^[12][1]
3. (obsolete) A road for carts.^[4]

Word family

• cararău
• cărăra
• cărărat
• cărărea
• cărări
• cărărui
• cărăruică
• cărăruie
• cărărușă
• cărăruță

Related words

• car
• căra
• carieră
• Aromanian cãrari
• Latin carrus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cărare
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cărare
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 328
5. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. căráre
6. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 75
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 272
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 260
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1718
10. ^ 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 26:17
11. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 248
12. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 159