cadru

Forms

cadru n (plural cadre)^[1] The feminine variant cadră is older: „O altă mare cadră, întru care să arată întristarea a unii întregi familii pentru fiul ce să pornește la război” “another large picture, which shows the grief of a whole family for the son setting off to war” (Dinicu Golescu).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French cadre, as DER, DELR, DEX, MDA2 and Wiktionary agree.^{[4][5][6][7][1]} Tiktin gives Italian beside French.^[3] The French word was taken from Italian quadro (“square; framed picture”), which continues Latin quadrus (“square”), built on the stem quadr- of quattuor (“four”).^[5][8] DEX takes the sense “personnel, staff” from Russian кадры (kadry).^[6]

Related words are found across the Balkans: Modern Greek κάδρο (kádro) and Bulgarian кадро (kadro, “portrait”), recorded in Bulgarian from 1843,^[4][9] and south of the Danube, Aromanian cadru (“portrait”) and Megleno-Romanian cadru (“portrait, picture”), which Pascu and Capidan derive from Italian.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the word to 1783, Tiktin to 1818, in Leon Asachi's Loghica.^[5][3] MDA2's first record is Dinicu Golescu's account of his travels of 1824–1826, which also has the feminine cadră “picture”.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

The first senses were the frame of a picture and the framed picture itself.^[3][5] The figurative senses “setting, surroundings” and “limits of a subject” followed, as in în cadrul unui foileton “within a newspaper serial”.^[3][6] In the 19th century the word was also used of the cadres of an army, its officers and non-commissioned officers: Bălcescu writes that a great captain „împlini cadrele armatei” “filled up the cadres of the army”.^[3][8] DEX takes the later sense of the staff of any institution from Russian.^[6]

Technical senses grew from “frame”: the skeleton of a building, the frame of a bicycle or of a beehive, a frame aerial in radio, and the single image of a film.^[4][6][12] Romanian formed încadra “to frame, to fit in” from 1841, after French.^[5]

Timeline

• 1783 – the first record.^[5]
• 1806 – the variant cadră “frame; picture”.^[5]
• 1818 – in Leon Asachi's Loghica.^[3]
• 1824–1826 – cadră and cadru in Dinicu Golescu's travel account.^[7][3]
• 1841 – încadra “to frame”.^[5]
• 1871 – cadra “to fit, agree”.^[5]
• 1966 – cadraj “framing of a shot”.^[5]
• 1978 – cadrist “personnel officer”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A frame for a picture, photograph or mirror; by extension, the framed picture, and figuratively a very beautiful person.^[6][7]
2. The frame of a door or window; the opening in a wall that holds it; a drawn border round a text, map or photograph.^[6]
3. (figurative) setting, surroundings; the space that holds an image on a film.^[6]
4. (figurative) The limits of a problem, subject or action, and what lies within them: în cadrul “within, as part of”.^[6][3]
5. A skeleton of bars or beams used in building; a support for apparatus; a single image of a film, a shot.^[6][12]
6. (in the plural) The staff of an institution or enterprise, its managers, and the officers and non-commissioned officers of military units, and (rarely, in the singular) a member of staff: cadru didactic “teacher”.^[6]
7. (dated, in the plural) The personnel department of an institution.^[6]

Word family

• cadra
• cadraj
• cadrist
• încadra
• încadrabil
• încadratură
• reîncadra

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 311
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cadru
4. ^ 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. cadru
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. cadru
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 131
7. ^ 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, 273
8. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 215
9. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 2, 132
10. ^ 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, 202
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 54
12. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. cadru