echipă

Forms

echipă f (plural echipe)^[1] MDA2 records a rare old variant ecuipă; the participle ecuipat “equipped” occurs in Eminescu.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French équipe (“team, crew”), a neologism of the late 19th century.^{[4][5][2][6][1]} The French noun comes from Middle French equippe, from the verb equipper “to equip”.^[1] Ciorănescu lists echipa “to equip”, echipaj “crew” and echipament “equipment” beside it, all borrowed from French as well.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to Barcianu's dictionary of 1868, with the sense “crew, gang of men”;^[6][2] MDA2 cites the 1900 edition of the same dictionary.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The early sense is a gang of workers set to a particular job, with șef de echipă “foreman”, as Șăineanu, CADE and Scriban define it.^[7][8][9] The sports sense, a team that trains and competes together, is recorded in the dictionaries of the 1950s, together with spirit de echipă “team spirit”.^[10][11] The press of the 1980s coined echipă-fanion “flagship team”.^[12]

Timeline

• 1868 – first record, in Barcianu's dictionary.^[6]
• 1929 – Șăineanu: workers carrying out a particular job together.^[7]
• 1955–1957 – the sports team and spirit de echipă.^[10]
• 1984 – echipă-fanion “flagship team” in the press.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A team or crew: a group of people doing a common task under a leader.^[5][2] Spirit de echipă “team spirit”.^[5][2]
2. A sports team: a group of players who train together under a coach and take part in competitions.^[5][2]
3. Either of the two sides in a match (football, basketball, hockey and the like).^[5][2] Echipa oaspete a câștigat la limită.^[5][2]

Word family

• echipaj
• echipament
• echipa

Related words

• French équipe

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 782
3. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. echipat
4. ^ a b Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. echipă
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 340
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. echipă
7. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 226
8. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. echipă
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 458
10. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 194
11. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. echipă
12. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. echipă