escortă

Forms

escortă f (plural escorte)^[1] Older and regional variants are escort (neuter), the hypercorrect excortă, scortă and the folk-etymological iscurtă.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French escorte.^[2][3][4][1] DELR traces the variant scortă directly to Italian scorta, which Scriban also names as the source of the French word.^[2][5]

French took the word in the early 16th century from Italian, where the word, meaning “armed troop that accompanies someone”, is the feminine past participle of scorgere (“to guide, accompany”), used as a noun.^[6][2] The Italian verb goes back to Vulgar Latin *excorrigō (“to lead, accompany”), from Latin corrigō (“to straighten, correct”), itself con- with regō (“to direct, guide”).^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is from 1814: MDA2 cites a translation from German printed at Buda about the French war and the retreat from Moscow, and DELR a text by Teodorovici of the same year.^[3][2] The sense then was the armed group that accompanies someone.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a guard of soldiers that accompanies a dignitary, a convoy or prisoners.^[2][7] At sea it named the warships that protect transport vessels, a sense Șăineanu already gives, and later also groups of military aircraft.^[8][4] The phrase sub escortă “under guard” and the expression a fugi de sub escortă “to escape from custody” belong to the prison sense.^[9][3]

In recent usage the word also means a single person who protects someone, a bodyguard, and a woman paid to accompany a man to social events.^[2] The press of 2008–2009 uses it for a call girl, with domnișoară de escortă and escortă masculină.^[10] Underworld slang uses it for a criminal's accomplice.^[11]

Timeline

• 1814 – the first record, in a translation printed at Buda and in Teodorovici.^[3][2]
• 1840 – the verb escorta “to escort”, from French escorter.^[2]
• 1931 – the CADE records the guard of honour of a sovereign and the warships that escort transports.^[7]
• 1937 – escortor “escort vessel or fighter”, from French escorteur.^[2]
• 2008 – the press uses the word for a paid companion.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A guard of armed people who accompany prisoners so that they do not escape; the people of such a guard.^[4][3]
2. A group of people who accompany a high official to protect or serve him; a retinue.^[4][12]
3. A group of warships or military aircraft that accompany an official ship or plane, or protect transport and merchant vessels in war.^[4][13]
4. A person who accompanies someone to protect them, a bodyguard; a woman paid to accompany a man to social events, an escort.^[2][10]
5. (slang) A criminal's accomplice.^[11]

Word family

• escorta
• escortor

Related words

• French escorte

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. escortă
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 831
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 360
5. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 474
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. escortă
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 233
9. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 220
10. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)
11. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. escortă
13. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. escortă