colecție

Forms

colecție f (plural colecții)^[1] The older variant was colecțiune: „Colecțiunea poeziilor mele” “the collection of my poems”, in Negruzzi.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French collection, with Latin collēctiō as a second model.^{[4][5][3][6][1]} DELR and the DA name only the French word, which is itself from Latin;^[4][2][7] DEX and the neologism dictionaries give both.^[4][2][7] The Latin noun is formed on colligō (“to gather, collect”), from con- and legō (“to gather, pick”).^[4][2]

Graur lists it among the Romanian descendants of that Latin verb, beside the inherited culege from the same compound.^[8] The DA compares colectă, colectiv and colector.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1820 published in the Annals of the Romanian Academy, and DELR's is a text of L. Asachi of 1821.^[5][4] The sense was a gathering of objects of value;^[4] DELR also records the obsolete sense “collection of money, charity”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The core sense, objects gathered and arranged for their artistic, scientific or documentary value, was there from the start: Russo speaks of a colecție of two hundred Slavonic charters in Transylvania.^[2][9] A sense “collection of money” is recorded in the Uricariul, where the DA marks it as unusual, and later dictionaries label it obsolete.^[2][6] Negulici (1848) glosses it with the native adunătură.^[10]

From the objects the word passed to a series of books grouped by a publisher and to the holdings of a library, and in medicine to pus gathered in a tissue or cavity.^[3][11] The verb colecționa (1896) was taken from French collectionner, and colecționar (1891) was formed on it after French collectionneur.^[4]

Timeline

• 1820 – a document published in the Annals of the Romanian Academy.^[5]
• 1821 – in a text of L. Asachi.^[4]
• before 1849 – colecția in a document of the Uricariul.^[6]
• 1848 – defined in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[10]
• 1891 – the derivative colecționar “collector”, in Kogălniceanu.^[4]
• 1896 – the verb colecționa.^[4]
• 1955 – the feminine colecționară.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A collection: a series of objects of the same kind gathered and arranged for their artistic, scientific or documentary value.^[3][6]
2. A series of literary or scientific works grouped by a publisher; the whole set of a library's publications.^[3][11]
3. (medicine) pus gathered inside a diseased tissue, an organ or a cavity of the body.^[3][6]
4. (obsolete) A collection of money for charity.^[6][4]

Word family

• colecționa
• colecționar
• colecționară

Related words

• culege
• colectă
• colectiv
• Latin collēctiō

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. colecție
3. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 205
4. ^ 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. colecție
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. colecție
6. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 460
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. colecție
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 55
9. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 489
10. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. colecție
11. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. colecție