facultate

Forms

facultate f (plural facultăți)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French faculté, with Latin facultās (“ability, power, means”) as a second model, as DEX 2009, MDA2 and the neologism dictionaries give it.^[2][3][4] The DA calls it a neologism from French, Tiktin a loan from Latin.^[5][6] The French word is a learned loan of about 1210 from Latin;^[7] Medieval Latin had already used facultas for a group of disciplines and for a faculty of a university (1237).^[7]

The Latin word is a doublet of facilitās: both belong with facilis (“easy”), and the DHLF derives the noun from the old adverb facul (“easily”), from faciō (“to do, make”).^[8][7][1] Graur places it beside facil and face in the same Latin family.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1777.^[6] Negulici's dictionary of neologisms (1848) defines both senses, a natural power of the mind or body and the body of teachers of a university.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word had two senses from its first dictionaries, “ability, power” and “a division of a university”, both from French.^[10][11] Costinescu (1870) and Scriban add “the right to do something”, the legal sense, which the DA quotes from Maiorescu.^[11][12][5] The phrase facultățile sufletului “the faculties of the soul”, for intelligence, feeling and will, is now old.^[3] In the university sense the DA defines it first as a group of teachers with the right to teach (facultas docendi), then as the studies and the building;^[3] MDA2 adds the staff.^[5][3] In slang a facultate is a prison term.^[13]

Timeline

• 1777 – the first record.^[6]
• 1848 – both senses in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[10]
• 1862 – Pontbriant glosses it with French faculté, possibilité.^[14]
• 1870 – Costinescu's facultatea de drept, facultatea de medicină.^[11]
• 1887 – Odobescu, MDA2's first source.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A faculty, aptitude: a physical, moral or intellectual capacity;^[2][3][1] facultățile mintale “the mental faculties”.^[2][3][1]
2. The property of a thing or system to act or develop in some way.^[2][3]
3. A faculty of a university: a teaching and administrative unit led by a decan, for a group of related disciplines; the building and the staff of such a unit.^[2][3][1]
4. (slang) A prison term.^[13]

Related words

• universitate
• facultativ
• facil

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 378
3. ^ 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, 872
4. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. facultate
5. ^ a b c Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. facultate
6. ^ 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. facultate
7. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 42
10. ^ a b c 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, p. 174
11. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 418
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 489
13. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. facultate
14. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 254