cord

Forms

cord n (plural corduri)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowing borrowed from Latin cor (“heart”), a Latinism of medical language.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu dates it to the 19th century.^[3] The Latin word continues Proto-Indo-European *ḱḗr (“heart”) and is cognate with Ancient Greek καρδία (kardía) and Old English heorte.^[1][6] Graur groups the word with cordial, concordie and discordie among the Romanian words from this Latin family.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is from Kretzulescu in 1843, the date Tiktin gives too, with the sense “heart” in medicine.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The word has stayed a medical and anatomical synonym of inimă, used above all in phrases such as atac de cord “heart attack” and boală de cord “heart disease”.^[9][4][10] In the 1960s, after French cœur-poumon artificiel, medical language formed cord-plămân artificial “heart-lung machine”.^[11] Its family is mostly made of later French loans: cordial from 1829, cordialitate from 1837, cordiform from 1861.^[2]

Timeline

• 1843 – cord “heart” in Kretzulescu, the first record.^[2][8]
• 1856 – cordat “heart-shaped” in botany.^[2]
• 1961 – cord-plămân artificial in the press.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy, medicine) The heart.^[5][12][10]

Word family

• cordat
• cordial
• cordialitate
• cordiform
• precordial

Related words

• inimă

Usage notes

DELR records an old variant cor of the word for the heart.^[2]

DEX has two other words spelled cord with other origins.^[5] Its cord² is a strong fabric whose warp is made of tightly twisted threads, used above all for tyres;^[5][2][13] DEX takes it from French corde, DELR adds German Kord and traces the French technical word to the English word cord, and its first record is from 1949, in the Lexiconul tehnic român.^[5][2][13] Its cord³ is a knife used to strip hair from hides in leatherwork, of unknown origin.^[5][12]

An older cord “sword”, recorded in 1638 with the plural corduri, comes from Hungarian kard.^[12][4]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. cord
3. ^ a b 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. cord
4. ^ a b c 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. cord
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 235
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
8. ^ 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. cord
9. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 549
10. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. cord
11. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)
12. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 508
13. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual