cablu

Forms

cablu n (plural cabluri)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French câble (“cable, hawser”), one of the French loans of the 19th century.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The DA counts it among the neologisms taken from French.^[6] The two dictionaries of neologisms also compare English cable.^[7][8]

The French word is a Norman and Picard form with ⟨ca-⟩, which ousted the central form Old French chable in the 18th century through its use in seafaring.^[9] It goes back to Late Latin capulum (“a kind of rope; noose”), which DELR derives from Latin capiō (“to take, seize”).^[2][9] Scriban gave a different Latin source, capulus (“handful, bundle”), and compared Occitan cable.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is from the newspaper Românul of 18 January 1862, with the senses “hawser, mooring rope” and “electric cable”.^[2] Tiktin dates the word to Barcianu's dictionary of 1868.^[5] MDA2's first record, a technical encyclopedia of 1939, is much later.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was a thick rope of hemp, above all a ship's hawser; by analogy a rope of steel wire was called the same, and so was the submarine cable that carried the telegraph across the sea.^[6][11] The electric cable of insulated wires became a sense of its own in the 20th-century dictionaries.^[12][3]

The sea gave the word a measure as well: a tenth of a nautical mile, the length of an average hawser, also called incablură (1884).^[2][3] The telegraph brought cablogramă “cable message” (1898), and the verb cabla (1902) first meant both “to make or lay a cable” and “to send a message by cable”; all of these came from French too.^[2]

Timeline

• 1862 – cablu “hawser; electric cable” in the newspaper Românul, the first record.^[2]
• 1868 – in Barcianu's dictionary.^[5]
• 1884 – incablură “cable's length”, a nautical measure.^[2]
• 1898 – cablogramă “cable message”.^[2]
• 1902 – the verb cabla.^[2]
• 1924 – cablaj “cabling” and cablier “cable ship”.^[2]
• 1933 – cablor “cable worker”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thick rope or cable of twisted textile or metal strands, used to pull or lift loads.^[3][4]
2. An electric cable: a conductor made of several insulated wires.^[3][4]
3. A unit of distance at sea, a tenth of a nautical mile (185.2 m); also called ancablură.^[3][4]

Word family

• cabla
• cablaj
• cablier
• cablogramă
• cablor
• incablură

Usage notes

The plural is cabluri.^[3] DN also records a plural cable.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. cablu
3. ^ 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. 130
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 272
5. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cablu
6. ^ a b 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. cablu
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. cablu
8. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. cablu
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 213
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 88
12. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 105