cartier

Forms

cartier n (plural cartiere)^[1] Older forms are cartir, cuartir and quartir.^[2] DELR records cuartier in 1829.^[3] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 spells it quartierŭ.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French quartier.^{[5][3][6][7][2][1]} The French word is from quart (“quarter”), from Latin quārtus (“fourth”).^[3] Kluge and Pfeifer trace it through Medieval Latin quarterium and Latin quārtārius (“a quarter”).^[8][9] Kluge traces the sense from “a fourth” to “a quarter of a town” and then to soldiers' lodgings.^[8]

The Marcu–Maneca dictionary compares German Quartier.^[10] Romanian had borrowed the German word earlier, as the word for a billet or soldiers' lodging, recorded from 1694, perhaps also from Russian квартира (kvartira).^[3] DER lists cvartir and cortel as old variants of the word.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1767.^[2] DELR dates it to 1829, with the variant cuartier and the senses “part of a town” and “place where troops are quartered”.^[3] MDA2's first record is from Titu Maiorescu's parliamentary speeches (from 1866).^[6]

Semantic evolution

The town district and the military camp or headquarters are the two senses of the 19th-century dictionaries: Costinescu (1870) gives a district, winter quarters, barracks and the general headquarters, with French quartier.^[4] Scriban adds billeting: soldiers were given la cartier in town.^[11] Marele cartier general became the army's supreme command in wartime.^[7][6]

Heraldry uses the word for a division of a shield, and seamen for the sides of a ship from the middle to the stern.^[5][6][7] Newer compounds are cartier-oraș “a district the size of a town” (1962) and cartier-dormitor, after French cité-dortoir.^[12]

Timeline

• 1694 – cvartir, from German, a billet for soldiers.^[3]
• 1767 – cartier, the first record.^[2]
• 1829 – DELR's first date, with the variant cuartier.^[3]
• 1834 – încartirui “to billet troops”.^[3]
• 1857 – încartiera, of the same meaning.^[3]
• 1866 – MDA2's first record, in Maiorescu's speeches.^[6]
• 1870 – quartierŭ in Costinescu's dictionary.^[4]
• 1962 – cartier-oraș in the press.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A part of a town with its own character, forming a whole, a district or neighbourhood: Locuiesc într-un cartier liniștit.^[7][1]
2. The inhabitants of such a district.^[7][6]
3. (military) The part of a large unit's command made up of service staff and communications: marele cartier general “general headquarters”.^[7]
4. (military) A fortified place where troops stay for a long time for exercises, a camp.^[7][6]
5. (nautical) Each of the sides of a ship from the middle towards the stern.^[7]
6. (heraldry) Each of the divisions of a shield.^[6][5]

Word family

• încartirui
• încartiera

Related words

• cvartir
• French quartier

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. cartiér
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. cartier
4. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 390
5. ^ a b c d 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. cartier
6. ^ 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, 302
7. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 149
8. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
9. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
10. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. cartier
11. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 235
12. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. cartiér