e-mail

Forms

e-mail n (plural e-mailuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English e-mail, short for electronic mail, taken over unadapted.^[2][3][1] The English word mail meant a travelling bag from about 1200; in the 17th century it came to mean a bag of letters and then the post; it comes from Old French male (“small bag, pack”), from Frankish *malha, related to Old High German malaha and Middle Dutch male.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is in the magazine Știință și tehnică of 1 November 1992.^[3] Dimitrescu's dictionary of recent words quotes it in the press from 1995, for the service by which readers send comments to the authors of articles.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word names the service of sending messages over the Internet, a message sent this way, and the address of a user of the service.^[3][2] Romanian has also taken the bare English mail, pronounced as in English and used for “e-mail” too, recorded from 2001.^[3]

Timeline

• 1992 – the first record, in Știință și tehnică.^[3]
• 1995 – in the daily press.^[4]
• 2001 – mail “e-mail”, in the review Vatra.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. e-mail, electronic mail: the service of sending messages over a computer network.^[2][3][1]
2. A message sent by e-mail; in this sense it has the plural e-mailuri.^[2][3]
3. An e-mail address.^[3]

Related words

• mail

Usage notes

It is pronounced as in English, with the stress on either syllable (iméil or ímeil), and is also spelled email.^[2][3]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 350
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. e-mail
4. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. e-mail