caz

Forms

caz n (plural cazuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowed from Latin cāsus (“a fall; chance, event, case”), the source DELR, MDA2, DLR and Tiktin name, taken partly with the senses of French cas, which DA, DEX and Tiktin add.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Ciorănescu gives only Italian caso, and Laurian and Massim also had the Italian.^[7][2] The Latin noun is from cadō (“to fall”), also the source of the inherited cădea.^[2][1][8]

The grammatical sense is a calque already in Latin of Ancient Greek πτῶσις (ptôsis, “a fall”), the Greek grammarians' term.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is the Latin form casus, between 1691 and 1697, and Tiktin dates caz to 1703.^[2][6] MDA2 and DA quote the Moldavian civil code of 1833, which explains cazu as întâmplare “event”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word served the law and the sciences: “what happens or may happen”, “circumstance, situation” (caz de forță majoră “case of force majeure”, caz de conștiință “matter of conscience”), and, in medicine, the form an illness takes in a patient and then a case of illness (câteva cazuri de scarlatină).^[4][3][5] The grammatical sense, “case” of a noun, came with the school grammars.^[4][5]

Common phrases are în orice caz “in any case”, în caz că “in case”, a face caz de ceva “to make a fuss about something” and a admite cazul că “to suppose that”.^[5][6][3] The derivatives cazuist (1811), cazual (1840) and cazuistică (1868) came from French and Latin.^[2]

Timeline

• 1691–1697 – the Latin form casus, the first record.^[2]
• 1703 – caz in Tiktin's first record.^[6]
• 1811 – cazuist “casuist”.^[2]
• 1833 – cazu “event” in the civil code of Moldavia.^[3][4]
• 1840 – cazual “accidental; of grammatical case”.^[2]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms, glossed “accident, event”.^[9]
• 1868 – cazuistică “casuistry”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A circumstance, situation: în acest caz “in this case”;^[10] caz de conștiință “matter of conscience”;^[10] a face caz de ceva “to make much of something”.^[5][3]
2. An event, an accident: un caz ciudat.^[5]
3. (medicine) A case of illness; a patient: două cazuri de rujeolă.^[5][3]
4. (grammar) A grammatical case: a category of the noun and its forms that show its syntactic function.^[5][10]

Word family

• cazual
• cazualism
• cazualitate
• cazuist
• cazuistic
• cazuistică

Related words

• cădea
• Latin cāsus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. caz
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 314
4. ^ a b c d e 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. caz
5. ^ 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. 154
6. ^ 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. caz
7. ^ 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. caz
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 24
9. ^ Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. caz
10. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. caz