coardă

Forms

coardă f (plural coarde or corzi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin chorda (“string of a musical instrument, later also of a bow”), from Ancient Greek χορδή (khordḗ, “gut; string of an instrument”).^[2][3][4][1] The senses of music, mathematics, anatomy and sport follow French corde.^[2][5]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian coardã “string” and Megleno-Romanian coardă “a shelter for sheep and goats”.^[2][6][7] Its Romance relatives include Italian corda, Catalan corda, Portuguese corda and Spanish cuerda.^[3][4] Ciorănescu also compares Albanian kordëzë.^[3]

Jud took the sense “beam” for a Balkan one, comparing Modern Greek κόρδα (kórda);^[3] Ciorănescu thinks it may already be Latin and compares Sardinian kordáu “beam”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1534, the place name Corzi in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[2][8] DELR records the personal name Cordar (a maker of strings or bows) in 1519.^[2] Ciorănescu dates the word in Slavonic–Romanian documents from 1408, a date that Tiktin gives to the separate coardă “sword”.^[3][9] MDA2's first record is Varlaam's Cazania of 1643.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word names anything stretched like a string: the strings of an instrument, the string of a bow, the cord that tightens a saw, a rope.^[5][2][8] Figuratively the strings are those of the heart, and several idioms come from them: a atinge coarda sensibilă “to touch a sensitive spot”, a începe pe altă coardă “to try another tune”.^[10][8][5]

Other senses come from the shape or the tension: a sinew or tendon, a young shoot of the vine, a thread drawn from overboiled syrup, the spring of a lock or a watch, and a long beam that carries the ceiling.^[5][8][3] The ropes round a boxing ring gave the colloquial în corzi “on the ropes, in trouble”.^[11] In slang the word names a prostitute.^[12]

Bulgarian took korda from Romanian, according to Capidan.^[3]

Timeline

• 1534 – the place name Corzi, the first record.^[2][8]
• 1589 – coarde “strings” in a psalter (Psalm 91:3).^[13]
• 1643 – Varlaam's Cazania, MDA2's first record.^[10]
• 1649 – coarde in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda gives the string of an instrument and the spring of a clock.^[15]
• 1870 – cordaj “rigging”, from French.^[2]
• 1885 – cordar “the tailpiece of a violin; a small saw”.^[2]
• 2000 – în corzi “on the ropes” in the sports press.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A string of a musical instrument; in the plural, stringed instruments;^[5][1] coardă vocală “vocal cord”.^[5][1]
2. The bowstring that holds the ends of a bow.^[5]
3. (mathematics) A chord of a curve or of an arc.^[5]
4. The cord that ties the arms of a frame saw and tightens its blade.^[5]
5. (in the plural) The ropes of a boxing ring;^[5][11] în corzi (colloquial) “in trouble”.^[5][11]
6. A rope used in gymnastics, for skipping or by climbers.^[5]
7. A young, supple shoot of the vine.^[5]
8. (popular) A sinew, tendon or ligament.^[5][1]
9. A thread drawn from syrup that has boiled too long.^[5][8]
10. (popular) A large, thick beam that carries the ceiling of a house.^[5]
11. (slang, pejorative) A prostitute; a hypocrite.^[12]

Word family

• cordar
• cordi
• cordiș
• cordișoară
• cordui
• încorda
• descorda

Related words

• Aromanian coardã
• Latin chorda

Usage notes

The plural is coarde, also corzi.^[5] A întinde coarda până se rupe means to push a situation too far.^[5] Wiktionary treats the slang word separately and derives it from the verb cordi, from the Romani perfect stem kurd- of Romani kurel.^[1]

A regional coardă “sword” (variant coartă), used in northern Transylvania and Maramureș, has a separate source.^[2][5] DELR and the DA derive it from Hungarian kard, and DEX compares that word.^[2][16][5] Ciorănescu derives it from Old Church Slavonic коръда (korŭda), and Tiktin gives several sources.^[3][9] DELR dates it from 1638, in the variant cord.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. coardă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. coardă
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1881
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 199
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 300
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 74
8. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. coardă
9. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. coardă 2
10. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 444
11. ^ a b c d Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. coardă
12. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. coardă
13. ^ 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 91:3
14. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. coarde
15. ^ 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. 139
16. ^ 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. coardă