delicios

Forms

delicios m or n (feminine singular delicioasă, masculine plural delicioși, feminine/neuter plural delicioase)^[1] An older variant delițios occurs in Codrescu's prose: „nimicindu-se într-un repaos delițios” “vanishing into a delicious rest”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French délicieux and, as a learned word, borrowed from Latin dēliciōsus (“delightful”): DELR, MDA2, DEX, DN, MDN and the DLR all name both sources.^{[3][4][5][6][7][2]} Tiktin takes it from Latin, directly or through another language, and Scriban from Latin alone.^[8][9] Wiktionary gives the French word as the source and notes that it corresponds to deliciu with the suffix -os.^[1]

The French word is a learned loan from Late Latin.^[1] The Latin adjective, a late word, is formed on dēliciae (“delight, pleasure”) with the suffix -ōsus.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR, MDA2 and Tiktin date the first record to 1794, in the Calendariu printed in Vienna.^[3][4][8] The passage the DLR quotes uses it of a pleasant feeling: „O pătrundea de înbeție delicioasă” “a delicious intoxication was coming over her”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was “extremely pleasant, charming”, used of places, sights, music and feelings through the 19th century.^[2] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 glosses it “very good, very pleasant, very tasty”, and the food sense became the main one: DEX defines it first as “very tasty” of food and drink and gives “charming” as a figurative sense.^[11][5] MDA2 still orders the senses the other way and adds a figurative use of people, “adorable”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1794 – first record, in the Calendariu printed in Vienna.^[3][2]
• 1836 – the figurative “delightful” in a periodical, of the girdle of Venus.^[2]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms, with Latin deliciosus as its source.^[11]
• 1870 – in Costinescu's dictionary, glossed “very good, very pleasant, very tasty”.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of food and drink: very tasty, delicious.^[5][4][1]
2. (figurative) Extremely pleasant, charming, enchanting: o seară delicioasă la mare.^[5][4]
3. (figurative) Of people: adorable.^[4]

Related words

• deliciu
• Latin dēliciōsus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. delicios
3. ^ 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. deliciu
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 635
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 285
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. delicios
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. delicios
8. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. delicios
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 400
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. deliciosus
11. ^ a b 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. delicios
12. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 305