datorie

Forms

datorie f (plural datorii)^[1] Old and regional variants are detorie, deatorie, adetorie, dătorie, ditorie and dotorie.^[2][3][4] A document of 1626 has deatorie: „păntru o deatorie ce au fost plătit” “for a debt that he had paid”.^[5]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian dator + -ie, the suffix of abstract nouns.^[6][7][2][1] The adjective dator “owing, indebted” continues from Latin dēbitor (“debtor”), or a Vulgar Latin *dēbitōrius used for it; compare Spanish deudor and Portuguese devedor.^[8][9][10] The regular outcome had ⟨e⟩ in the first syllable;^[8][9] DELR explains the ⟨a⟩ by confusion with an old homonym meaning “giver”, from da “to give”, and Ciorănescu also sees contamination with dare “giving”.^[8][9] Ciorănescu reports that Albanian detyrë (“duty”) may have come from Romanian.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1527–1538, from D. Bogdan's glossary.^[2] The Slavonic–Romanian Gospel of 1551–1553 has „Lasă-l și-i iartă datoria lui” “let him go and forgive him his debt”, and Coresi's Carte de învățătură (1581), MDA2's first record, sets a debt of a hundred coins against the thousands of talents.^[5][8][3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was money or goods owed.^[6][7] DA also records the reverse, money owed to oneself, a claim, in documents of the 1620s and in the law code.^[7][2] The moral sense “duty, obligation” grew beside it;^[4][6] Tiktin quotes a-și face datoria “to do one's duty”.^[4][6] Some old translations of the Lord's Prayer used the word for “trespass”: „Și ne iartă nouă datoriile noastre” (Matthew 6:12).^[4][7] Under the influence of da it could mean “gift”, and under that of dată and datină it meant “custom” in folk poetry.^[2][1] The old phrase a plăti datoria cea de obște “to pay the common debt” meant “to die”.^[4] The learned datorință “obligation”, recorded in Șincai in 1812, was made to keep the duty apart from the debt, as German has Pflicht beside Schuld.^[2]

Timeline

• 1527–1538 – first record, in D. Bogdan's glossary.^[2]
• 1551–1553 – datoria “his debt” in the Slavonic–Romanian Gospel.^[5]
• 1581 – Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[3][5]
• 1596 – „Am prinsu datoria cea veache” “I have taken over the old debt”, in a document.^[5]
• 1626 – the variant deatorie in a document.^[5]
• 1642–1647 – Ureche's chronicle: a prince given the country with a heavy debt.^[5]
• 1649 – Mardarie's lexicon gives it for Slavonic долг “debt”.^[11]
• 1812 – datorință “obligation”, in Șincai.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A debt: a sum of money or other goods owed to someone;^[6][3][1] pe datorie “on credit”;^[6][3][1] a se îngloda în datorii “to sink into debt”.^[6][3][1]
2. A legal or moral obligation, a duty;^[6][12][1] la datorie “on duty”;^[6][12][1] a fi de datoria cuiva să… “to be someone's duty to…”.^[6][12][1]
3. (obsolete) Money owed to oneself, a claim.^[7][2]
4. (folk poetry) custom, habit.^[2][1]

Word family

• datorință

Related words

• datora
• datorită
• datornic
• dator
• îndatora

Usage notes

The phrase a cădea la datorie once meant “to fall into debt”; said of soldiers it means “to die on the battlefield”, and figuratively “to give one's life for a cause”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. datorie
3. ^ 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, 602
4. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. datorie
5. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. datorie
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 271
7. ^ a b c d e 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. datorie
8. ^ a b c d 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. dator
9. ^ a b c d 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. dator
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2492
11. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. datorie
12. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. datorie