dosar

Forms

dosar n (plural dosare)^[1] Heliade-Rădulescu wrote dosier, closer to French: „dosiere” “files” of the law courts.^[2][3] Eminescu has dosariu: „Dosariul corespondenței cu biblioteca din Iași” “the file of the correspondence with the library in Iași”.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French dossier, adapted to Romanian.^{[3][4][5][6][1]} The French word first meant a bundle of documents in a cover with a title on its back; it is formed on dos (“back; spine of a book”) with the suffix -ier, the noun comes from the popular Vulgar Latin dossum, for dorsum.^[3][1] Scriban notes that it has the same origin as Romanian dos.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is Ion Heliade-Rădulescu's dosier of 1847, of the files of the courts.^[3][2] Tiktin dates dosar to 1855.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word belonged to the courts and the offices from the start: the DLR quotes Ion Ghica on magistrates who looked more to their passions than to the files, and Maiorescu on the whole file of the Strousberg affair.^[2] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 also gives dossar as the back of a chair, after the other sense of French dossier;^[8][5] MDA2 still lists it as obsolete.^[8][5]

Set phrases came from the law courts: a închide dosarul “to close the case”, a pune la dosar “to file away, to ignore”.^[6][4] Under communism a person's dosar at work or in the archives of the Securitate decided their fate, and a-și strica dosarul meant to spoil one's record; since the 1990s it has also meant a computer folder.^[9][3] The verb îndosaria “to put into a file” is recorded from 1924.^[3] Hungarian borrowed the word as Hungarian doszár.^[1]

Timeline

• 1847 – dosier in Heliade-Rădulescu, the first record.^[3]
• 1855 – dosar.^[6]
• 1870 – dossar for the back of a chair, in Costinescu's dictionary.^[8]
• 1924 – the verb îndosaria in the Monitorul oficial.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The set of documents about a matter, a problem or a person; a dossier, a file.^[4][3]
2. By extension, the cardboard cover in which such documents are kept; a folder.^[4]
3. (computing, rare) A folder, a directory.^[3][9]
4. (slang) Compromising information used for blackmail in politics.^[10]

Word family

• îndosaria

Related words

• dos
• French dossier

Usage notes

A închide dosarul is to end an inquiry or a lawsuit without settling it;^[4][5] a pune la dosar is to shelve a request, or not to care about something.^[4][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. dosar
3. ^ 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. dosar
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. 328
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 748
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. dosar
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 443
8. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 357
9. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. dosár
10. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. dosar