culcare

Forms

culcare f (plural culcări)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian culca + -re, the long infinitive of the verb used as a noun of action.^[2][3][4][1] The verb culca continues Latin collocō (“to place together, set”), which in Late Latin also meant “to lay down”; it is made of con- and locō (“to place”), from locus (“place”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1642, in the Govora homiliary.^[4] MDA2's first record is a text of before 1689 in Gaster's chrestomathy, quoted by Tiktin: „În loc de pat moale, culcare grea” “instead of a soft bed, a hard lying-down”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is lying down to rest or sleep, and the moment one goes to bed: a merge la culcare “to go to bed”.^[4][2] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 already uses it for lying with someone, as the verb is used.^[6][3] Costinescu (1870) records the phrase de la culcarea găinilor până la cântarea cocoșilor “from the hens' bedtime to the cocks' crowing”, that is, all night.^[7][3] CADE (1931) has odaie de culcare “bedroom”.^[8] In the army culcare! is the command to drop flat on the ground.^[2][9] MDA2 also lists lodging, the bending of plants and, in popular speech, killing, senses the verb has too.^[3]

Timeline

• 1642 – first record, in the Govora homiliary.^[4]
• 1688 – “lying with someone” in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]
• before 1689 – “lying down” in a text in Gaster's chrestomathy.^[3][4]
• 1825 – the Buda lexicon renders it with Latin cubatio, decubitus.^[11]
• 1870 – the phrase de la culcarea găinilor in Costinescu.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of lying or laying down; a placing in a horizontal position, especially to sleep or rest.^[2][3]
2. bedtime: the moment when one goes, or is taken, to bed: E ora de culcare. “It's bedtime.”^[2][9]
3. (military, often with the article, as an interjection) The order to lie prone on the ground.^[2][3]
4. (colloquial) Sexual intercourse.^[3]

Related words

• culca
• culcat
• culcuș

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 257
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 567
4. ^ 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. culcare
5. ^ 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. culca
6. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Leviticus 18:22
7. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 277
8. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. culcare
9. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 596
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Leviticus 20:13
11. ^ 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. 152