copie

Forms

copie f (plural copii)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin copia (“copy”), which came into Romanian by several routes.^[2][3] DELR names German Kopie, with the Austrian stress on the first syllable, and Russian as further sources.^[2] The DA describes the routes: in the Lexicon of Buda from Medieval Latin, in Wallachia and Moldavia first from Russian and then from Italian and French, in Transylvania from German.^[3] DEX and MDA2 give French copie and Latin, and Wiktionary only French.^[4][5][1] Tiktin speaks of a neo-Latin word that came “through various intermediaries”.^[6] DER takes it from Latin, partly through Russian.^[7]

The Medieval Latin sense “copy” is a new meaning of Latin cōpia (“abundance, supply, means”), probably from a phrase for laying up a stock of copied texts, or after the verb copiō (“to copy”).^[2] The Latin noun is formed from cōps (“well supplied”) with -ia.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1700, in a document.^[2] Tiktin's first date is 1761 and MDA2's 1794.^[6][5] The early records are legal: copies of documents taken from the original, as in „De pe care scoțind D-lor copie” “of which their lordships made a copy”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the old legal records a copy had to be certified: Caragea's law code requires that a copy presented in court be confirmed by the judges.^[3] From documents the word spread to works of art, paintings and sculptures, and to the pejorative sense of a servile imitation without value.^[3][4] Iacob Negruzzi called his satirical sketches Copii de pe natură “copies from nature”.^[3]

The verb copia (1787) and the noun copist (about 1832) came from French; copier, the commercial letter book, from German Kopierbuch.^[2] The 20th century added fotocopie and fotocopia, both recorded in 1950.^[2]

Timeline

• 1700 – the first record, in a document.^[2]
• 1787 – the verb copia.^[2]
• 1794 – a copy of a document in the Uricariul collection.^[5]
• c. 1832 – copist and recopia in I. Golescu.^[2]
• 1887 – copier in the Commercial Code.^[2]
• 1950 – fotocopie and fotocopia.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A copy: an exact reproduction of a text, a work of art, a photograph and the like; synonym duplicat.^[4][5][1]
2. (pejorative) A servile imitation without value, sometimes made by improper means.^[4]
3. (law) A document that reproduces exactly the text of another document recording a legal act.^[4] A copie legalizată is a certified copy.^[4][5]

Word family

• autocopie
• copia
• copiator
• copier
• copist
• fotocopia
• fotocopiator
• fotocopie
• recopia

Related words

• French copie
• Latin cōpia

Usage notes

Two older words share the spelling.^[2][5] Copie (or copíe), “abundance, multitude; flock”, was a Transylvanian latinism of Petru Maior and his contemporaries, from Latin copia, recorded from 1812 and now obsolete.^[2][3][5] Copie in church language is the double-edged knife with which the priest cuts the communion bread, recorded from Coresi's liturgy of 1570; its source is Old Church Slavonic копие (kopije, “spear”).^[2][9][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 m n 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. copie
3. ^ 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. copie
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 233
5. ^ 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, 504
6. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. copie 2
7. ^ 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. copie
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. copie 1