chip

Forms

chip n (plural chipuri)^[1] The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) spells it chipu, with the plural chipuri.^[2] DA records the old and regional plural forms chipurile and chipurilea, used as adverbs.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Hungarian kép (“image, appearance, face”), in its dialectal form kíp, which explains the Romanian vowel.^{[4][5][3][6][1]} Gáldi counts it among the oldest Hungarian elements of Romanian.^[7] The Hungarian word is itself a loan from Old Turkic, made before the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin.^[8][9][1] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Turkic *kēp (“form, image”), and Zaicz compares Khakas and Chuvash words meaning “model, form, likeness”.^[1][9]

The same Hungarian word was borrowed by the neighbouring Slavic languages: Serbo-Croatian kip and Slovene kip “statue”.^[4][9][3] Scriban held that the Slavonic word also came from the Hungarian one.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1480;^[11] DELR dates the word to about 1500.^[11][5] In Romanian texts the earliest is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, of the early 16th century, at Psalms 105:21 and 143:14.^[12] MDA2 cites it first from the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583).^[6]

Semantic evolution

The DA notes that in the old language, and still in folk speech, the word was used far more than in the modern literary language, where neologisms with narrower senses have replaced it.^[3] Its senses fall into two groups.^[3] The concrete ones go from “image, picture” (the painted pictures of the Moldavian Pravila, the chip cioplit “graven image” of the 1688 Bible, Exodus 20:4) to “portrait, statue, effigy” and, in folk use, “photograph”.^[3][11][6] From “appearance, figure, face” came “person”, “model, example” and “sign, symbol”.^[3][5]

The second group is abstract: “kind, sort, manner, way”, “means, possibility” and “pretext”, which gave many set phrases: în chip de “in the shape of, like”, fel și chip “all kinds of”, cu orice chip “at any price”, nu e chip să “it is impossible to”.^[3][13][4] The plural with the article, chipurile, became an adverb meaning “supposedly, so they say”, often ironic.^[4][5][10] In Maramureș chip still means “photograph”.^[14]

The word has a large family: închipui “to imagine” (formerly also “to paint”) is recorded from about 1566, the adjective chipeș “handsome” from 1612, borrowed from Hungarian képes.^[5][4]

Timeline

• 1480 – first record.^[11]
• c. 1500 – DELR's date for the word.^[5]
• early 16th century – chip in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[12]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[6]
• c. 1566 – the derivative închipui.^[5]
• 1612 – chipeș “handsome”.^[5]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1688 – chip cioplit “graven image” in the Bucharest Bible (Exodus 20:4).^[11]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses it with Latin imago, species, figura, modus.^[7]
• 1873–1876 – the adverb chipurilea “supposedly”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A face; the expression of a face, a countenance: Avea un chip blând.^[13]
2. The appearance or look of a being; a person, a being: în chip de “in the form of, like”.^[13]
3. An image of a person or thing in a drawing, painting or sculpture;^[13][6] chip cioplit “graven image, idol”.^[13][6]
4. (religion) The image of God imprinted on man at the creation.^[13]
5. A manner, way or kind: fel și chip “all kinds of”;^[13] în fel și chip “in every possible way”.^[13]
6. (rare) A means or possibility: cu orice chip “at any price”;^[13] nu e chip să “it is impossible to”.^[13]
7. (regional) A photograph.^[6][14]

Adverb

1. (chip, usually the articled plural chipurile) supposedly, so they say, as a pretext: A venit, chipurile, să ne ajute.^[4][10][16]

Word family

• chipeș
• chipos
• chipuială
• chipușor
• închipa
• închipui
• închipuință
• închipuitor
• închipuitură
• întruchipa
• întruchipat

Related words

• Hungarian kép

Usage notes

MDA2 and the DA also have a second chip, a variant of chiup “earthenware jar”.^[6][3] The English chip “microchip”, pronounced /t͡ʃip/ and recorded in the Romanian press from 1976, is a separate neologism.^[17][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 116
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. chip
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. chip
5. ^ 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. chip
6. ^ 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, 384
7. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 108
8. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
9. ^ a b c Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
10. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 271
11. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. chip
12. ^ 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 105:21
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 180
14. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. chip
15. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
16. ^ Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 93
17. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
18. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)