economie

Forms

economie f (plural economii)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French économie, also borrowed from Latin oeconomia (“household management”), from Ancient Greek οἰκονομία (oikonomía).^[2][3][1] DEX names only the French word, MDA2 the French and the Greek ones.^[4][5] The older variant iconomie, recorded first, comes from Modern Greek οικονομία (ikonomía), the Greek of the Phanariote period.^[2][5][6]

The Greek noun, used since Xenophon, is formed on οἰκονόμος (oikonómos, “manager of a household”), from οἶκος (oîkos, “house”) and νέμω (némō, “to distribute, to manage”).^[2][7] It meant the management of a household, then thrift and the administration of a state.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to 1644, in the form iconomie, in Eustratie's Șapte taine, and Tiktin gives 1645 for the same text.^[2][9] The form economie appears about 1734 in a document from Oltenia published by Iorga.^[2][5] The old senses were the running of a household, the administration of property and the office of a steward, and by extension the goods of a household.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Around 1800 a face iconomie meant “to act cautiously, with calculation”, sometimes with intent to deceive.^[9] From the careful handling of goods came the sense “thrift”, the reduction of spending, and the plural economii “savings”.^[5][9] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 lists economia politică, economia rurală and other scientific phrases after French models, and Scriban gives the sense “arrangement of the parts of a whole”, as in the economy of a book.^[10][6] Today the main sense is the whole of a country's production, distribution and consumption, with phrases such as economie de piață “market economy”.^[4]

Its family grew in step: iconom “steward” from 1581, iconomisi “to save, to manage” from 1686 in Dosoftei, and economesc “economic” from 1839.^[2]

Timeline

• 1581 – iconom “steward” in Coresi's Evanghelia cu învățătură.^[2]
• 1644 – iconomie in Eustratie's Șapte taine, the first record.^[2]
• 1686 – iconomisi in Dosoftei.^[2]
• c. 1734 – the form economie in an Oltenian document.^[2][5]
• 1839 – the adjective economesc “economic”.^[2]
• 1870 – economie politică and related terms in Costinescu's dictionary.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The economy: all human activity in the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services: economie de piață “market economy”;^[1] economie politică “economics”; also a branch of production.^[4][5][1]
2. thrift: sparing use of money and materials, limited to what is needed; a saving.^[4][5]
3. (in the plural) savings, money put aside.^[4][1]
4. The arrangement of the parts of a work, a text or a law; composition.^[4]

Word family

• economic
• economicește
• economisi
• economisitor
• economiza
• economist

Related words

• econom

Usage notes

The old variant was iconomie.^[4] MDA2 lists a second, obsolete economie formed on econom “steward” with the suffix -ie, meaning a steward's office, recorded from 1645.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. economie
3. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. economie
4. ^ 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. 1, 341
5. ^ 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, 785
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 459
7. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1023
8. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. οἰκονομία
9. ^ 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. economie
10. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 369