construcție

Forms

construcție f (plural construcții)^[1] The older form was construcțiune;^[2][3] Ienăchiță Văcărescu wrote construcțione, after Italian: „A se păzi construcționea și ortografia” “the construction and the spelling are to be observed”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cōnstrūctiō, also borrowed from French construction, a learned word of the late 18th century.^[4][5][6][1] Tiktin names Italian costruzione as a third model, and Văcărescu's ⟨construcțione⟩ follows the Italian word.^[3][2] The DA and DLRM take it chiefly from French.^[2][7]

The Latin noun, “a putting together, erection of a building”, is formed from cōnstruō (“to pile up together, build”) with the suffix -tiō.^[8][1] DELR puts it in the family of the verb construi.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1783, in a text of Gheorghe Șincai;^[4][3] DELR defines the early word broadly as the act of building and its result, including a linguistic structure.^[4][3] Văcărescu's grammar uses construcțione of the arrangement of words in a sentence.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Both the grammatical sense and the material one were current in the first half of the 19th century: Negruzzi asks to be shown “the construction of the verbs”, and Negulici's dictionary of 1848 defines it as the act of building and its result, a building.^[2][9] The DA adds lemn de construcție “timber” and the sense “physical build” of a person.^[2]

In the 20th century the plural construcții became the name of a branch of the economy and of engineering, with construcții de mașini “mechanical engineering”.^[5][6] DEX now gives “building” as the first sense.^[5] Press compounds of the 1970s include construcții-montaj “construction and assembly”.^[10]

Timeline

• 1783 – first record, in Gheorghe Șincai.^[4][3]
• 1848 – “building, edifice” in Negulici.^[9]
• 1871 – the family words construct and constructiv in Laurian & Massim.^[4]
• 1970 – construcții-montaj in the press.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A building or structure put up to a plan, of brick, wood, metal or concrete, to shelter people, animals or goods; specifically, a house.^[5][6]
2. The act of building, construction; in în construcție “under construction”.^[5]
3. Make-up, composition, structure of something.^[5][6]
4. (in the plural) The building industry and the branch of engineering that designs and builds structures;^[5][6] construcții de mașini “mechanical engineering”.^[5][6]
5. (linguistics) A group of words in a syntactic relation, a set phrase; the way words are arranged in a sentence.^[5][6]
6. (geometry) A figure drawn with lines to meet given conditions.^[6][2]

Related words

• construct
• constructiv
• constructivism
• constructivist
• constructor
• construi
• construibil
• construit
• instrucțiune

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. construcție
3. ^ 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. constrúcție
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. construcție
5. ^ 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. 225
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 492
7. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. construcție
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. constructio
9. ^ 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. construcție
10. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. constrúcție