curte

Forms

curte f (plural curți)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin curtis (“yard, court”), a popular form of Latin cohortem (“enclosed yard; retinue”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The change of /o/ to /u/, recorded in the Late Latin form, recurs in other inherited words such as cute and ușă, and in Albanian kurt and Byzantine Greek κούρτη (koúrtē).^[2] The Latin word is formed with com- on the root of hortus (“garden”).^[2][6] The senses “court of law” and “courtship” follow French cour.^[2][4][7]

It survives in Aromanian and Istro-Romanian, with the Aromanian form curte.^[2][8][9] The Albanian word goes back to the same Late Latin form, as Miklosich, Meyer and Pușcariu held.^[10] Romance cognates include Italian corte, Occitan cort, Spanish corte and Portuguese corte.^[3] Ciorănescu rejects a Greek source for the Romanian word (Diculescu) and the label “Balkan word”, since it is so general in Romance.^[3] It is a doublet of cohortă, and Wiktionary adds cort, which came through Greek.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are place names in Slavonic charters: Curte in 1485 and Curtișoara in 1502; the derivative curtean is a place name already in 1464.^[5][2] In Romanian texts the word appears in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500–1520).^[11] MDA2's first record is Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură of 1581.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is the enclosed space around a house;^[12][5] Moldavia also calls it ogradă, other regions bătătură, obor or ocol.^[12][5] From the farmyard the word passed to the manor of a landowner and to the prince's palace, then to the people around the ruler and to his guard.^[3][4] The church language used the plural for heaven: Coresi writes „curțile lui Dumnezeu înflori-vor” “they shall flourish in the courts of God”.^[5][2]

The verb încurți “to settle at someone's court” (1570) copies Slavonic vŭdvoriti sę.^[2] French cour gave the word the senses “court of law” and “courtship”, as in a face curte “to court”.^[2][4] The verb curta (1860) follows French courtiser and Italian corteggiare, while curtezan and curtezană are French loans.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1485 – Curte, a place name in a Slavonic charter.^[5][2]
• 1497 – curtișoară as a place name.^[2]
• c. 1500–1520 – curtea and curțile in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[11]
• 1570 – încurți in Coresi's psalter.^[2]
• 1581 – curte in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[7]
• 1621 – curtenie “service at court”.^[2]
• 1624 – curtenesc “of the court”.^[2]
• c. 1770 – curtezan, from French.^[2]
• 1860 – curta “to court” in Filimon.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A yard, courtyard: the enclosed space around a building or farmstead: păsări de curte “poultry”.^[4][1]
2. (historical) A landowner's country house, a manor, with its outbuildings.^[4][3]
3. The palace of a sovereign; the people of high rank around him, his suite.^[4][2]
4. A court of law: Curtea de Apel “Court of Appeal”, curte cu juri “jury court”; its members.^[4]
5. courtship: flattering attention paid to a woman to win her favour: a face curte.^[4][2]
6. (obsolete, church language) Heaven.^[3][2]

Word family

• curta
• curtean
• curteancă
• curtenesc
• curtenește
• curteneț
• curteni
• curtenie
• curticică
• curtișoară
• încurți

Related words

• cohortă
• cort
• Aromanian curte
• Latin cohors

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 o p q r s t 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. curte
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. curte
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 264
5. ^ 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. curte
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. ^ 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, 582
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
9. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională
10. ^ Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
11. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
12. ^ a b 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. curte