coridor

Forms

coridor n (plural coridoare)^[1] MDA2 records the variants colidor and caridor;^[2][3] French itself had a popular colidor in the 19th and early 20th centuries.^[2][3] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 spells it Кorridor, with a Cyrillic letter, in the transitional alphabet.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French corridor, according to DELR, MDA2 and DEX possibly also borrowed from German Korridor.^[5][2][6][1] Tiktin names Italian as a source beside French.^[7] The French word was borrowed in 1611 from old Italian corridore, literally “place for running”, from correre (“to run”), from Latin currō;^[3][5][8][9] German took the same Italian word in the 17th century.^[3][5][8][9] The DA and Scriban trace the Italian word further to Spanish corredor, from correr.^[10][11] Graur lists it in the family of curge, Romanian's inherited form of the same Latin verb.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to about 1832, in Iordache Golescu, and Tiktin to about 1830.^[5][7] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 defines it as a narrow gallery between the apartments of a house.^[4] MDA2's first record is in Costache Negruzzi's collected writings of 1872, where he recalls that his father's library stood in a chest in the corridor.^[2][7][10]

Semantic evolution

It was applied to the passage along the compartments of a carriage, a sense the DA records from Sandu-Aldea.^[10][6] The geographical sense is a narrow strip of land joining two points, often through foreign territory;^[5][13][3] French uses its word in the same way.^[5][13][3] Scriban preferred it to culoar, which he called a barbarism, though the two are now synonyms.^[11][6] The diminutive coridoraș is recorded from 1921, in Sadoveanu.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1830 – the first record, according to Tiktin.^[7]
• c. 1832 – in Iordache Golescu, DELR's first record.^[5]
• 1848 – Кorridor in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[4]
• 1872 – Costache Negruzzi's collected writings, MDA2's first record.^[2]
• 1921 – the diminutive coridoraș in Sadoveanu.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A corridor: a narrow, usually long passage joining the rooms of a building or apartment; culoar.^[6][2]
2. The narrow passage along the compartments of a railway carriage.^[6][2]
3. A narrow strip of land joining two points.^[6][5][14]

Word family

• coridoraș

Related words

• culoar
• curge
• French corridor

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 511
3. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c 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. korridor
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. coridor
6. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 237
7. ^ 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. coridor
8. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
9. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
10. ^ 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. coridor
11. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 349
12. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 35
13. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. coridor
14. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. coridor