cuplu

Forms

cuplu n (plural cupluri)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French couple (“pair, couple”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The French word, recorded as Old French cuple in the 12th century, is from Latin cōpula (“bond, tie; a pair joined by friendship or love”).^[2][6] The Latin noun is formed from con- (“together”) and apiō (“to fasten, join”), whose participle survives as the adjective aptus.^[2][7] Graur lists it among the Romanian words of the same Latin family, with apt, adept, adapta and copulă.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is in Bolintineanu, 1867, with the sense “a pair of persons joined by a lasting bond”; the physics sense, two equal forces acting in opposite directions, is in the same article.^[2] MDA2's first record is a technical encyclopedia of 1939.^[4]

Semantic evolution

CADE (1931) gives only the technical senses: the pair of forces in physics and a coupling device.^[9] The couple of persons, a man and a woman joined by marriage or love, is the main sense in DEX.^[3] MDA2 adds two lead actors, a tennis doubles pair, two animals in one harness, and the frame of a ship's hull, a French naval sense.^[4][6] Romanian borrowed the French technical verbs and nouns of the same family in the 20th century: acupla (1914), cupla (1916), cuplaj (1928).^[2]

Timeline

• 1867 – cuplu in Bolintineanu, the first record.^[2]
• 1914 – acuplare, from French accoupler.^[2]
• 1916 – the verb cupla, from French coupler.^[2]
• 1928 – cuplaj in a work of Teodoreanu.^[2]
• 1931 – the physics and coupling senses in CADE.^[9]
• 1939 – MDA2's first record, a technical encyclopedia.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A couple: two persons, usually a man and a woman, joined by marriage, love or a lasting bond; also two people paired by chance: un cuplu de dansatori.^[3][4][10]
2. Two actors playing the lead roles together; in tennis, a doubles pair; two animals harnessed for the same work.^[4]
3. (physics) A system of two equal, antiparallel forces; torque.^[3][4][1]
4. (shipbuilding, aviation) A transverse frame of a boat's hull or an aircraft's fuselage.^[10][5]

Related words

• copulă
• French couple

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. cuplu
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 261
4. ^ 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, 575
5. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. cuplu
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
9. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. cuplu
10. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. cuplu