desena

Forms

desena (third-person singular present desenează, past participle desenat), 1st conjugation^[1] Ion Ghica wrote desina: „până la cincisprezeci ani învață a ceti, a scri, a calcula și a desina” “up to fifteen he learns to read, to write, to reckon and to draw”.^[2] Eminescu has desemna: „Luă creionul și desemnă pe părete o portocală” “He took the pencil and drew an orange on the wall”.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French dessiner (“to draw”).^{[3][4][5][6][1]} The French verb was first Middle French desseigner, an adaptation of Italian disegnare (“to trace the outline of”), which comes from Latin dēsignō (“to mark out, represent”), formed on signō (“to mark”), from signum (“sign”).^[3][7][8] The modern French form was remade after the noun dessin in the 17th century.^[7]

The Romanian variant desemna was reshaped after semn “sign”, and the present form settled after the noun desen.^[3][2] Wiktionary counts the verb a doublet of designa, which goes back to the same Latin verb.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is from 1835, as desina in Bolliac, with the sense “to draw”;^[3][6] Tiktin dates the word to 1836.^[3][6] The noun came first: dizeniu, in the sense “plan”, is recorded in 1794 and desen in 1800.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Through the 19th century three spellings competed, desina, desemna and desena; the DLR quotes Ghica, Filimon, Caragiale and Vlahuță with desina and Maiorescu and Eminescu with desemna.^[2] Desena won, and the others are now variants marked as old.^[4] Besides drawing, the verb is used reflexively of something that stands out against a background, as mountains on the horizon, and rarely of outlining a question.^[4][9] Slang gave it the sense “to inform on someone”.^[10]

Timeline

• 1794 – dizeniu “plan”, the first form of the noun desen.^[3]
• 1835 – desina “to draw” in Bolliac, the first record of the verb.^[3]
• 1836 – Tiktin's first date.^[6]
• 1872 – desena in Constantin Negruzzi's collected writings.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To draw: to make a drawing of something.^[4][5]
2. (reflexive) To stand out, to be outlined against a background: Pe cer se desenau acoperișurile.^[4][9]
3. (figurative, rare) To sketch a question or a problem.^[4][5]
4. (slang) To inform on someone.^[10]

Word family

• desen
• desenator
• desenatură

Related words

• desemna
• French dessiner

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. desena
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. desena
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 298
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 660
6. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. desena
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2596
9. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 68
10. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu