cetate

Forms

cetate f (plural cetăți)^[1] An old variant is citate.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cīvitās (“citizenship; city”), through its accusative.^{[2][4][3][5][1][6]} The Latin noun is formed on cīvis (“citizen”).^[2]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian țitate, Megleno-Romanian țitati and Istro-Romanian cetåte, the Istro-Romanian word meaning “town”.^[2][4] Albanian qytet (“town”) comes from the same Latin word.^[1][4] The Romance cognates include Italian città, French cité, Catalan ciutat, Spanish ciudad and Portuguese cidade.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1391, in a document.^[7] DELR dates the word to about 1500, and the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500–1520) uses it often for the cities of the Psalms, as in Psalm 54:9.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Latin cīvitās meant citizenship and the body of citizens; in the Romance languages it came to mean a fortified place or town.^[9] Old Romanian used cetate for both a fortress and a town, interchangeably with oraș, which later took over the sense “town”.^[1][7] Cetate de scaun was the residence of the prince, the capital; in Transylvania the phrase also meant a county seat, after Hungarian székváros.^[2][3] Today the word means mainly a fortress or citadel, and the old walled quarter of a town.^[5]

The derivative cetățean is recorded from the 16th century; its political sense “citizen” follows French citoyen.^[2]

Timeline

• 1391 – the first record.^[7]
• 1455 – the diminutive cetățea, in a place name.^[2]
• c. 1500-1520 – cetate in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8][2]
• c. 1563-1583 – cetate in the Codicele Voronețean;^[3][2] cetățean is recorded from the same years.^[3][2]
• 1595 – the diminutive cetățuie, in a place name.^[2]
• 1829 – concetățean, after French concitoyen.^[2]
• 1871 – cetățenie “citizenship”, after French citoyenneté.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fortress, a place fortified with walls and other defences; a citadel.^[5][3]
2. A town or district with a character of its own: cetate universitară “university town”; the old quarter of a town where a fortress once stood.^[5]
3. (figurative) A place of defence and refuge.^[3]
4. The inhabitants of a (fortified) town.^[5][3]
5. (obsolete) In cetate de scaun: the princely residence, the capital of the Romanian principalities.^[5]

Word family

• cetățea
• cetățenesc
• cetățenie
• cetățenime
• cetățuică
• cetățuie
• concetățean
• încetățeni
• cetățean

Related words

• oraș
• Latin cīvitās

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. cetate
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, 367
4. ^ 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. cetate
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 174
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1959
7. ^ 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. cetate
8. ^ a b 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, p. Ps 54:9
9. ^ 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. cetate