comedie

Forms

comedie f (plural comedii)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French comédie (“comedy”) in its modern sense, with Latin comoedia as a second model.^[2][3][4][1] The older form, stressed ⟨comédie⟩ on the second syllable, came by other routes: DELR names the Latin word, taken as a learned word, Italian commedia and German Komödie, the German word with the sense “fair show”, and takes the variant ⟨comodíe⟩ from Modern Greek κωμῳδία (komodía).^[2] Ciorănescu likewise derives the theatre sense from French and the others from German, and the DA traces the fairground senses to German because the travelling circus troupes came mostly from Austria.^[5][6] DEX 2009 and Scriban instead give a Turkish source for the older form, which they cite as komedya, which Tietze takes from Italian;^[3][7][8][9] Gabinschi allows Turkish or Russian.^[3][7][8][9]

The Latin word is from Ancient Greek κωμῳδία (kōmōidía), from κωμῳδός (kōmōidós, “member of a Dionysiac procession”), from κῶμος (kômos, “revel, band of revellers”) and ἀοιδός (aoidós, “singer”).^[2][1][10] Pascu compares Aromanian cumedie with Italian, Venetian, Greek and Turkish forms.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is comédie in Teodor Corbea's Latin–Romanian dictionary of 1691–1697, under Latin comoedia.^[2] Tiktin cites Cantemir's Divanul of 1698, and MDA2 dates the popular senses to Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică of 1704.^[12][13]

Semantic evolution

Two stresses carry two groups of senses.^[5][6] Comédie, the older and popular form, meant a public show at a fair with circus acts, panoramas and merry-go-rounds, then a strange or funny happening, a prank, a marvel, and even a contraption; in Eminescu's line „că comedia se mișcă” “that the contraption moves” it is the world itself.^[14][13][12] The Lexicon of Buda of 1825 used comedie for any staged play, merry or sad, and the DA notes that it once also meant a serious play.^[15][6] Comedíe in the sense of the comic play came with French in the 19th century, together with the figurative “pretence, hypocrisy”.^[6][3]

The popular form gave expressions such as iacă comedie! “what a thing!”, de comedie “laughable” and comedie de copil “a very clever child”; adverbially it means “terribly, extremely”: fântâna e comedie de adâncă “the well is terribly deep”.^[13][12] Corbea's dictionary already has the agent nouns comediaș and comedietor.^[2]

Timeline

• 1691–1697 – comédie, comediaș and comedietor in Teodor Corbea's dictionary, the first record.^[2]
• 1698 – in Cantemir's Divanul.^[12]
• 1704 – comediant “comic actor; hypocrite”; the popular senses in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[2][13]
• 1794 – comediană “actress”, from French.^[2]
• 1803 – comedian “comic actor”.^[2]
• 1825 – comedie for a staged play in the Lexicon of Buda.^[13][15]
• c. 1832 – the diminutive comedioară.^[2]
• 1852 – comedios “funny” in Anton Pann.^[2]
• 1870 – tragicomedie in Costinescu's dictionary.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A comedy: a dramatic work whose plot and ending provoke laughter and which mocks social relations, human types and customs.^[3][1]
2. The comic genre; a performance of a comedy.^[13]
3. (figurative) Pretence, hypocrisy, falseness.^[3]
4. (colloquial, stressed comédie) A strange and funny happening, a prank; an unexpected thing, a marvel.^[3][13]
5. (rare, stressed comédie) A public show at a fair, with circus acts, panoramas and merry-go-rounds; a contraption, mechanism.^[3][14]

Word family

• comedioară
• comedios

Related words

• comediant
• comedian
• comediaș
• comic
• comediograf
• tragicomedie
• Aromanian cumedie

Usage notes

DEX 2009 and the DLRLC list comedíe and comédie as two headwords; their origins overlap, so they are treated together here.^[3][14][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. comedie
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. 210
4. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. comedie
5. ^ a b c 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. comedie
6. ^ 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. comedie
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 320
8. ^ a b Tietze, Andreas (2002–2018), Tarihi ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugatı, Istanbul: Simurg; Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, p. 352
9. ^ a b Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 82
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 206
12. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. comedie
13. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 468
14. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 500
15. ^ a b 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. 134