cazinou

Forms

cazinou n (plural cazinouri)^[1] Older and Transylvanian forms are casino, casină, cazin and gazin;^[2][3][4] DEX also lists cazino.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French casino.^{[2][4][3][5][1]} Marcu also names Italian casino, which is the source of the French word: a diminutive of casa (“house”), from Latin casa, meaning first “small house, country house” and then “brothel” and “gambling house”.^[6][2][7] DELR derives the old forms casino, casină and cazin from German Kasino (“club, casino”), itself from Italian.^[2]

The inherited Romanian word from the same Latin noun is casă (“house”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the word to 1815, at first in the form casino and in the sense “club”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

In Transylvania a casină or cazin was a club, a meeting place for its paying members.^[2][3] The modern sense, a public building with a restaurant and rooms for gambling, dancing and shows, at first in spas and resorts, matches the French sense, recorded there from 1812.^[4][8][7] MDA2's first record of this sense is from Marian's study of Romanian funerals in 1892.^[3]

Timeline

• 1815 – casino “club”, the first record.^[2][5]
• 1892 – cazinou in Marian's Înmormântarea la români.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A casino: a public building with a restaurant and rooms for gambling, dancing and shows.^[4][3][1]
2. (Transylvania, dated) A club, the meeting place of its members.^[3][2]

Related words

• casă
• French casino

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. cazinou
3. ^ 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, 315
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 155
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. cazinóu
6. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. cazinou
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. cazinou