echilibru

Forms

echilibru n (plural echilibre)^[1] The first half of the 19th century also wrote ecvilibrie, ecvilibru and ecuilibru: „Stelele... fără a răzăma în ceva, într-o minunată ecvilibrie, slobode toate aleargă” “the stars, resting on nothing, all run free in a wonderful balance”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French équilibre, with Latin aequilībrium as a second model, as DEX, MDA2 and Wiktionary give it;^[4][5][3][1] DELR puts the French word first.^[4][5][3][1] DELR explains the old variants in ⟨-iu⟩ and ⟨-ie⟩ (ecvilibriu, ecvilibrie) from the Latin word, ecuilibriu possibly from Italian equilibrio as well, and ecvilibru as the French word Latinised.^[3] The Latin noun is formed from aequus (“equal”) and lībra (“balance”), as a calque of Ancient Greek ἰσοσταθμία (isostathmía).^[3][6] French took it from Latin in the 16th century.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR's first record is in Tăutu in 1827;^[3][8] Tiktin dates the word to 1830.^[3][8] The early records belong to physics and astronomy: a body or a star held in balance by opposite forces.^[2] MDA2 dates it from Heliade's translation of Don Juan (1847), where a ship is set back in balance.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

From the physical sense, a body held at rest by equal and opposite forces, the word passed to politics and economics: the balance of powers in Europe, whose preservation, Barițiu wrote, still kept the Turks in Europe, and the balanced budget, echilibru bugetar.^[2][9][4] Figuratively it means calm and inner stability, and a just proportion between opposite things.^[4] Șăineanu's dictionary already has a pierde echilibrul “to lose one's balance, to fall”;^[10][4] DEX gives the phrase as a-și pierde echilibrul.^[10][4]

Timeline

• 1827 – in Tăutu, the first record.^[3]
• 1830 – the date Tiktin gives.^[8]
• 1842 – the verb echilibra, as the participle ecvilibrat in Asachi.^[3]
• 1849 – echilibrist, as ecvilibrist in Stamati.^[3]
• 1876 – echilibristică and dezechilibru.^[3]
• 1879 – dezechilibra in Eminescu.^[3]
• 1889 – reechilibra.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A state of rest of a body; a stationary state of a phenomenon;^[4][5] a-și pierde echilibrul, to lose one's balance.^[4][5]
2. The property of a system of forces whose resultant is zero, so that it does not change the state of the body it acts on: equilibrium.^[4]
3. (figurative) Calm, harmony, inner stability.^[4][11]
4. (economics) A state of a balance in which the parts compared are equal: echilibru bugetar, a budget whose revenue covers its spending.^[4]
5. (figurative) A just proportion between two opposite things, and the harmony that results.^[4]

Word family

• dezechilibra
• dezechilibru
• echilibra
• echilibraj
• echilibrator
• echilibrist
• echilibristică
• reechilibra

Related words

• libră

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. echilibru
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. echilibru
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 340
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, 781
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ 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. echilibru
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 458
10. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 226
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. echilibru