celulă

Forms

celulă f (plural celule)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French cellule, and directly borrowed from Latin cellula (“small room”): DEX 2009, MDA2, Marcu and Wiktionary name both.^[2][3][4][1] Tiktin gives the Latin word with the French as a parallel, Marcu & Maneca add Italian, and DELR and the DA name French alone.^[5][6][7][8]

The French word was borrowed from Latin, where the word is the diminutive of cella (“storeroom, small room”).^[7][9] In Late Latin it came to mean a prisoner's cell, and in Christian texts a monk's dwelling.^[10] The biological sense goes back to Robert Hooke, who named the units of living tissue with the English word cell in his Micrographia.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1837, in Cihac's natural history, with the senses “small room” and “basic unit of living organisms”.^[7][5] DELR records an old variant țelulă.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The DA, early in the 20th century, ordered the senses from the room to the organism: a monk's cell, a prison cell, a cell of the honeycomb, and the anatomical unit of animal and plant tissue.^[8] Later senses are technical and political: a compartment of a device, the wings and body of an aircraft, and, under communism, the party cell, the basic organisation of the party.^[2][4] Musicians call the smallest unit of a motif a cell.^[4]

Most derivatives came ready-made from French: celulos 1830, celular 1842, unicelular 1895, fotocelulă 1949, celulită 1962.^[7] The sense of celular “mobile phone” follows English cellular.^[7]

Timeline

• 1837 – celulă in Cihac's natural history, the first record.^[7][5]
• 1842 – celular “cellular”.^[7]
• 1895 – unicelular “single-celled”.^[7]
• 1939 – intercelular and pluricelular.^[7]
• 1949 – fotocelulă “photoelectric cell”.^[7]
• 1962 – celulită “cellulitis”.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cell: the basic unit of living organisms, made of a membrane, cytoplasm and a nucleus.^[2][1]
2. (historical) celulă de partid: the basic organisation of the communist party.^[2]
3. A cell of the honeycomb; alveolă.^[2]
4. A small room in a prison where detainees or convicts are kept.^[2]
5. The wings, with the fuselage, of an aircraft.^[2]
6. Each of the identical compartments or elements of a device or system: celulă de siloz “silo cell”.^[2]
7. (dated) A small room, especially a monk's cell; chilie.^[3][8]

Word family

• celular
• celulită
• celulos
• extracelular
• fotocelulă
• intercelular
• monocelular
• multicelular
• pluricelular
• unicelular

Related words

• celuloză
• celuloid

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 168
3. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 356
4. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. celulă
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. celulă
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. celulă
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. celulă
8. ^ 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. celulă
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cellula
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. cellule