fișier

Forms

fișier n (plural fișiere)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French fichier (“card index, file”), one of the many French loans of modern Romanian.^[2][3][4][1] The French word is formed fiche (“index card”) with the suffix -ier.^[1] The dictionaries define the word as a collection of index cards, each of them a fișă, itself a loan of the French base.^[3][2]

For the computing sense, Dimitrescu's dictionary of recent words names English file beside the French model.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest quotation the dictionaries give is from the weekly Contemporanul of 1948, where pupils are busy inventorying a few thousand books and making up the library's fișier, its card catalogue.^[6] MDA2 dates the first record to Iorgu Iordan's Limba romînă contemporană of 1956.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a set of index cards arranged in some order, above all a library catalogue, and the cabinet or box in which such cards are kept.^[6][7] NODEX adds the room fitted out to hold such collections.^[8]

With the spread of computers it took the sense of a named collection of data kept on a storage medium.^[3][4] The press used it in this sense in the late 1990s, and phrases such as fișier atașat “attachment” and fișier audio “audio file” followed.^[5] DEX 1998 still lacks the computing sense, which DEX 2009 and MDA2 list.^[7][3][2]

Timeline

• 1948 – fișierul “the card catalogue” of a library, in the weekly Contemporanul.^[6]
• 1956 – in Iorgu Iordan's Limba romînă contemporană, MDA2's first record.^[2]
• 1997 – a fișier computerizat “computer file” in the daily Evenimentul zilei.^[5]
• 2000 – a computer worm that looks for a fișier, in the press.^[5]
• 2009 – DEX lists the computing sense.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A card index: a collection of index cards arranged in a certain order; in libraries, the catalogue.^[3][2]
2. A cabinet or box in which index cards are kept: Am căutat cartea în fișierul de la intrare.^[3][6]
3. (computing) A file: a set of data of the same kind, stored under a name on a disk or other medium.^[3][4][1]

Related words

• fișă
• French fichier

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 910
3. ^ 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. 397
4. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. fișier
5. ^ a b c d Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. fișiér
6. ^ a b c d Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 296
7. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 382
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. fișier