color

Forms

color m or f or n (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English color, an invariable adjective used of films and photographs.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DEX, NODEX, MDN and DELR all give English as the source, and none of them treats the word as a shortening of tehnicolor, the synonym DEX and MDN use to define it.^[3][4][5][2] Wiktionary calls it a doublet of culoare, the older Romanian word for “colour”.^[1] DELR lists it in the family of that word, beside the older formations from the same Latin root.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the adjective to 1943, in a work of Frunzetti, with the sense “in colour” said of films and photographs.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the single technical sense it was borrowed with: of a film, a photograph or a print, made in colour rather than in black and white.^[3][5] It does not inflect: the same form serves for every gender and number.^[3][1] DEX 1998 glossed it only as “Technicolor”;^[6][3] DEX 2009 adds the plainer synonym colorat “coloured”.^[6][3]

Timeline

• 1943 – the adjective color “in colour”, in Frunzetti.^[2]
• 1998 – DEX defines it as “Technicolor”, of films and photographs.^[6]
• 2009 – DEX adds the synonym colorat.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (invariable; of films, photographs and the like) In colour, not in black and white; tehnicolor, colorat.^[3][5][1]

Related words

• culoare
• colora
• tehnicolor

Usage notes

Older dictionaries have a different color, a masculine noun that is only a variant of coloare, the older form of culoare “colour”.^[7][8][9] Costinescu still lists colorŭ in 1870, referring the reader to colora.^[10] As the second element of compounds, -color “colour, coloured” goes back to Latin color through French -colore.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. culoare
3. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 207
4. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. color
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. color
6. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 198
7. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 464
8. ^ 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. color
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 318
10. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 215
11. ^ Andrei, Nicolae (1987), Dicționar etimologic de termeni științifici: elemente de compunere greco-latine, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. s.v. color