colo

Forms

colo^[1]

Etymology

It is a clipping from Romanian acolo (“there”), with the loss of the initial vowel.^[2][3][1] DELR lists the short form, stressed on either syllable, among the variants of the longer adverb, and the short form also occurs in Megleno-Romanian coló and Istro-Romanian coló.^[4] The longer adverb itself continues Latin eccum (“behold”) and illōc (“to that place”).^[4][5]

Scriban compares the pair to Italian colà beside Portuguese acolá and Spanish acullá.^[6] The Buda lexicon of 1825 took the word from the Italian adverb, a view of its time.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis, a Romanian–Latin glossary of the second half of the 17th century, where it glosses Latin ibi and illic “there”.^[8][2] The Bible of 1688 has it three times, among them in Matthew 17:20.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The adverb points vaguely at a distant place, in contrast to aici “here”, usually with a gesture.^[2] It forms many set phrases: de colo (până) colo “back and forth, all over”, ici, colo or colo și colo “here and there, rarely”, cât colo “some way off”, and când colo “but in fact”, which expresses surprise.^[3][2] MDA2 also records the regional senses “late” and “quite simply”.^[8] Scriban notes the stress cólo in the south and coló in the north.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1650–1700 – first record, in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[8]
• c. 1660–1670 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – three times in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]

Meanings

Adverb

1. there, yonder: in or to that place, away from the speaker; acolo.^[3][8]
2. de colo (până) colo: from one place to another, back and forth, everywhere.^[3]
3. (pe) ici, (pe) colo, colo și colo: here and there, in places, rarely.^[3][8]
4. cât colo: some distance away;^[3] cât de colo: from afar, plainly.^[3]
5. când colo: but in fact, instead (expressing surprise).^[3]
6. ia te uită colo!: well, look at that! (expressing astonishment).^[3][8]

Related words

• acolo
• încolo
• dincolo
• colea

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. colo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 206
4. ^ a b 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. acolo
5. ^ 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. acolo
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 317
7. ^ 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. 133
8. ^ 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, 463
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 17:20
10. ^ 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. colo