egalitate

Forms

egalitate f (plural egalități)^[1] An older Latinising form ecvalitate occurs in 1829: „Poporul caută să învieze şi să înrădăcineze ecvalitatea... cea firească” “the people seek to revive and root the natural equality”.^[2] MDA2 also records the old variant ecualitate.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French égalité (“equality”), the source DEX, Tiktin, Scriban, the DLRM and Wiktionary name.^{[4][5][6][7][1]} MDA2, the DLR and NODEX give Latin aequālitās (“equality”) as a second source.^[3][2][8] Within Romanian it can be analysed as egal with the suffix -itate.^[1] DELR treats it in the family of the adjective and records the variant ecvalitate in Asachi in 1837.^[9]

The French noun was formed in the first half of the 15th century on égal, replacing the inherited Old French oelté and learned forms such as equalité.^[10] The Latin noun is aequālis (“equal, even”) with the suffix -tās.^[11][1] The adjective is from aequus (“level, even; fair”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and MDA2 date the first record before 1817, in a text printed in the Uricariul collection.^[5][3] It already has the legal and political sense: laws that further human happiness by “distributing a just equality to all”, „distribuind tuturor o dreaptă egalitate”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The political sense of equal rights dominated the early records: the DLR quotes it from 1829 on in Heliade, Kogălniceanu, Negulici and Bălcescu, often beside liberty.^[2] In French, too, the sense of equal rights (1647) and the pairing with liberty in the Revolutionary period came before the mathematical term (1687).^[10] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 glosses it with conformity, uniformity and rights held in equal measure.^[12] The general sense “equal state of two things”, as in the equality of two lines or sums, is in CADE and Scriban.^[13][6]

The mathematical sense, a relation between equal quantities and its expression with the equals sign, and the sports sense of an equal score are recorded by the DLRM and DEX.^[7][4] Romanian also took the related adjective egalitar (1851) and the noun egalitarism (1870) from French.^[9]

Timeline

• before 1817 – egalitate in a text of the Uricariul collection, the first record.^[5][3]
• 1829 – the Latinising variant ecvalitate.^[2]
• 1837 – ecvalitate in Asachi, the first record DELR gives.^[9]
• 1842 – the opposite inegalitate, from French inégalité.^[9]
• 1848 – entered in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[12]
• 1851 – egalitar “egalitarian”.^[9]
• 1870 – egalitarism.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The state of being equal; the condition of two or more things that are equal to one another; also uniformity.^[4][3]
2. (sport) A draw or tie: a result in which several competitors score the same number of points: Meciul s-a încheiat la egalitate.^[4][14]
3. The principle that all people, states or nations have the same rights and duties before the law; the situation in which people enjoy the same rights and obligations: egalitate în drepturi.^[4][3]
4. (mathematics) A relation between two or more equal quantities or terms; its expression written with the equals sign.^[4][3]

Related words

• egal
• inegalitate
• egalitar
• egalitarism
• French égalité

Usage notes

La egalitate “level, with an equal score” is the usual phrase for a drawn match or contest.^[14][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. egalitate
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 792
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. 344
5. ^ 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. egalitate
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 462
7. ^ a b Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional
9. ^ a b c d e f g 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. egal
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. aequālitās
12. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București
13. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească
14. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne