celar

Forms

celar n (plural celare)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cellārium (“storeroom, pantry”), from cella (“storeroom, small room”).^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} De Vaan considers that the Latin noun may keep the long-vowel base of cēlō (“to conceal”).^[7]

The word survives south of the Danube as Aromanian tsilar, which DER and DELR write ⟨țilar⟩.^[2][3][8] Its Romance cognates include Italian cellaio, French cellier, Occitan celier, Catalan celler, Spanish cillero and Portuguese celeiro, and the Latin word also passed into German Keller.^[2][6] The same Latin word reached Romanian a second time through Greek as chelar, and chiler is a later doublet.^[6][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to about 1568.^[3] The psalters of the 16th century have the form celariu at Psalm 78:2, first in Coresi's psalter of 1570.^[11] In the old language it meant a chamber in general: the Codex Sturdzanus renders Matthew 6:6 as „Intră întru celariul tău și închide ușa ta” “enter into thy chamber and shut thy door”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From “room, chamber”, which it still has in the Bible of 1688 (Luke 12:24), the word narrowed to the small storeroom of a peasant house.^[12][13] The DA notes that it was at first a place where things were hidden away.^[9] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it for Slavonic words for a chamber and a storeroom, and the Mărgăritare of 1691 has „Nu era ascunsă în celariu, ce sta supt copaciu” “she was not hidden in the storeroom, but stood under a tree”.^[14][15]

Where the word survives, in Oltenia, Muntenia and southern Transylvania, its senses differ from place to place: a small room next to the main room, the smaller of the two rooms of a house, a hut used as a winter dwelling, the kitchen of older houses, a cellar, a granary, a hiding place.^[3][5][9] In Muscel the house had three rooms, the tindă, the celar and the casă mare, and the phrase din tindă în celar meant “from one place to another”, of someone who is sent round to no purpose.^[16] At the sheepfold the celar is the compartment where milk vessels, butter, cheese and brandy are kept.^[5][17][18]

Timeline

• c. 1568 – the first record.^[3]
• 1570 – celariu in Coresi's psalter (Psalm 78:2).^[11]
• 1649 – celariu in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14][15]
• 1688 – celariu “chamber” in the Bucharest Bible (Luke 12:24).^[19][12]
• 1691 – celariu “storeroom” in the Mărgăritare.^[15]
• 1871 – the diminutive celărel.^[3]
• 1900 – the diminutive celăraș.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (popular) A small room in a peasant house for keeping food and household things, a pantry or larder.^[4][5][1]
2. (regional) A small room next to the main room of a house, or the smaller of its two rooms.^[5]
3. (regional) In older peasant houses, the kitchen, opening on the entrance hall, where the family ate and kept its food.^[5][16]
4. (regional) A cellar; a granary.^[5]
5. (regional) A compartment of the sheepfold where milk, cheese and other produce are kept.^[5][18]

Word family

• celăraș
• celărel

Related words

• chelar
• chiler
• Aromanian tsilar
• Latin cellārium

Usage notes

Old texts write the word celariu.^[11][5] In Maramureș it is also found in place names, such as Vârful Celarului.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. celar
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. celar
4. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 168
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 355
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1804
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)
9. ^ a b c 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. celar
10. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 77
11. ^ a b c Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
12. ^ 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. celar
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition)
14. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
15. ^ a b c Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
16. ^ a b Rădulescu-Codin, C. (1901), O seamă de cuvinte din Muscel, Câmpulung
17. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 256
18. ^ a b c Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare
19. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Luca 12:24