detaliu

Forms

detaliu n (plural detalii)^[1] Older texts have detail and detai, taken from French: Dimitrie Asachi's surveying manual of 1854 tells how to fix „toate detailurile” “all the details” of an estate's boundary.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian dettaglio or French détail, the two sources that DEX 2009, MDN, MDA2 and Tiktin name.^{[5][6][3][7][1]} DELR and the DLR take the standard form from Italian, and the older variants detail, detai and detal from French.^[4][2] DN and NODEX give French, DN comparing the Italian word.^[8][9]

The Italian word is itself from French; it is recorded from 1698.^[10][11] The French word comes from détailler (“to cut into pieces; to sell piecemeal”), formed from dé- and tailler (“to cut”), which goes back to Late Latin taliō (“to cut”), probably derived from Latin tālea (“cutting, slip for planting”).^[4][1] The same verb gave Romanian tăia.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to about 1822, in the form detal, in a document published in Revista istorică;^[4][7] Tiktin cites the same record.^[4][7] The form detaliu with the plural detalii appears in 1857 in Vocea Oltului.^[4] The early sense was a small part of a whole, a particular.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The dictionaries of the 1870s record two uses: trade, where a vinde în detaliu “to sell retail” was opposed to selling wholesale, and speech, where one could go into all the particulars of an affair.^[13][14] From “particular” the word moved to “a trifle, something of no importance”, a sense Șăineanu already gives.^[15][5] In art it names a part of a work studied or reproduced on its own.^[2][8]

The verb detalia “to set out in detail” is recorded from 1852, from Italian dettagliare and French détailler.^[4] The 19th-century trade words detailiant and detailist “retailer” did not last.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1822 – detal, the first record.^[4]
• 1852 – the verb detalia.^[4]
• 1854 – detailurile in Dimitrie Asachi's surveying manual.^[3][2]
• 1856 – the adjective detaliat “detailed”.^[4]
• 1857 – the form detaliu, plural detalii, in Vocea Oltului.^[4]
• 1869 – detailiant “retailer”.^[4]
• 1883 – detailist “retailer”, in Kogălniceanu.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A detail, a particular: a small or secondary part of a whole;^[5][1] în detaliu “in detail”: Mi-a povestit totul în detaliu.^[5][1]
2. (a vinde) în detaliu: (to sell) retail, in small quantities.^[5][8]
3. A circumstance, an incidental fact of an event.^[5]
4. A small matter of no importance, a trifle.^[5][3]
5. A part of a work of art that can be studied or reproduced on its own.^[6][2]

Word family

• detailiant
• detailist
• detalia
• detaliat

Related words

• tăia
• French détail

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. detaliu
3. ^ 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, 681
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. detaliu
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 303
6. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. detaliu
7. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. detaliu
8. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. detaliu
9. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. detaliu
10. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. dettaglio
11. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. dettaglio
12. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
13. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 329
14. ^ Laurian, A. T.; Massim, I. C. (1871–1876), Dictionariulu limbei romane, 2 vols., Bucuresci: Noua Typographia a Laboratoriloru Romani, p. s.v. detaliu
15. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 206