execuție

Forms

execuție f (plural execuții)^[1] Old and regional variants include esecuție, execuțiune, ezecuție, zecuție, zacuție, jecuție and arjicuție.^[2][3] Ion Neculce writes zecuție: „au pus zecuție câte patruzeci soldați pre la gazdele caimacamilor” “he set forty soldiers as an enforcement guard at the lodgings of the caimacams”.^[4]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowing of the 18th century, borrowed from Latin exsecūtiō, with French exécution as the later model.^[2][3] Tiktin gives a New Latin source, perhaps through another language, and Wiktionary and the DEX give French alone.^[4][5][1] The variants with /ʒ/, written ⟨j⟩ or ⟨g⟩, come from Hungarian egzsekució (= ⟨egzekució⟩), as DELR gives it.^[2]

The Latin noun, “completion; prosecution”, is a noun of exsequor (“to follow to the end, carry out”), itself made of ex- and sequor (“to follow”).^[6][2] French borrowed it in the 13th century, first as a legal term.^[6] The verb executa was taken from French in the 19th century.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, of 1736, are in the documents of the Romanian community of the Șchei of Brașov, in the legal sense of enforcing a judgment or recovering a debt by force.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century the word was a legal and fiscal term: the enforcement of a judgment and the forced collection of a debt.^[4][5] Ion Neculce's zecuție is a guard posted to make officials pay what they owed, and the idiom a sta execuție (or a veni execuție) meant to put pressure on someone to make them act.^[4][3] MDA2 also records the forms zacuție and tecuție for this old use.^[3]

Modern dictionaries add the general sense “carrying out” and the carrying out of a death sentence; the DLRLC quotes Camil Petrescu on prisoners awaiting the guillotine at dawn.^[7][5] The Lexicon of Buda of 1825 still gives the forms execuție and esecuție beside Latin, Hungarian and German equivalents.^[8]

Timeline

• 1736 – execuție and ecjecuție in documents of the Șchei of Brașov, the first records.^[2][4]
• 1755 – the variant gecuție in a document.^[2]
• 1787 – execuție in a Romanian translation of Joseph II's instructions, printed at Sibiu.^[3]
• 1825 – execuție and esecuție in the Lexicon of Buda.^[8]
• 1832 – the verb executa.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of carrying something out; executare, performance.^[5][9]
2. (law) The forced collection of a debt through the courts or the tax authorities.^[5][10]
3. The carrying out of a death sentence, an execution.^[5][1]
4. (law) The enforcement of a court ruling, such as an eviction or the custody of children after a divorce.^[5][11]

Related words

• executa
• executare
• executor
• Latin exsecūtiō

Usage notes

Legal phrases include execuție silită “forced execution”, the seizure and sale of a debtor's property, and execuție provizorie “provisional enforcement” of a first-instance judgment.^[7][3] The ⟨x⟩ is pronounced /ɡz/: /eɡzeˈkut͡sie/.^[5][1]

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 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. executa
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, 854
4. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. execúție
5. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 369
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 234
8. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 207
9. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
10. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
11. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria