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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word gol

gol1 goal (sport)

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1953 the newspaper Scînteia
Borrowed from
English goal
Ultimate origin
English goal
Etymology tree of gol1
inherited borrowed derived
English goal
Romanian gol

Pronunciation

Forms

gol n (plural goluri)[1]

Etymology

The word for a goal in football is borrowed from English goal.[2][3][4][5][1] It was at first also spelled ⟨goal⟩, as in English.[6] Bulgarian гол (gol) is the same loan from English.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated quotation is from the newspaper Scînteia of 1953, which reports that the first goal came only seven minutes after the start of the match.[6] MDA2's first record is Iorgu Iordan's Limba romînă contemporană (1956).[4]

Semantic evolution

The word named first the act of getting the ball into the goal, then also the point scored by it.[4][3]

Timeline

  • 1953 – gol in a football report in Scînteia.[6]
  • 1955–1957 – the DLRLC notes the English spelling goal.[6]
  • 1956 – gol in Iordan's Limba romînă contemporană.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. In football and similar sports: getting the ball into the opponents' goal; the point scored in this way.[3][4][1]

gol2 naked, empty; void

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1563–1583 Codicele Voronețean
Borrowed from
Old Church Slavonic голъ
Ultimate origin
Proto-Slavic *golъ

Pronunciation

Forms

gol m or n (feminine singular goală, masculine plural goi, feminine/neuter plural goale)[1] As a noun, “empty space”, it is neuter, with the plural goluri.[3] The old texts have the masculine plural goli: „Se fratele, sau sora, goli fi-vor şi lipsiţi” “if the brother or the sister be naked and destitute” (Codicele Voronețean); Scriban still heard it in the north.[8][4][9]

Etymology

The word for “naked, empty” is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic голъ (golŭ, “naked”), from Proto-Slavic *golъ (“naked”).[2][4][8][1][10] Ciorănescu cites the adjective in Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian and Slovene, after Miklosich and Cihac;[2] compare Bulgarian гол (gol) and Serbo-Croatian go.[1][11] The Slavic adjective is probably cognate with Latin calvus (“bald”) and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *gelH- (“bald, naked”).[1]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian gol and Megleno-Romanian gol.[2][12] The noun “empty space” is the adjective used as a noun.[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583), in the plural goli “naked”.[4][8][14]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was “unclothed”: the Tetraevanghel of 1574 has „Te-am văzut flămând... sau gol” “I saw thee hungry... or naked”, and the Palia of 1582 „Eră amândoi goli, Adam și muiarea lui” “they were both naked, Adam and his wife”.[8][14] From the body the adjective passed to bare land, a sword out of its sheath and food eaten on its own (pâine goală “bread and nothing else”).[8] The DA records “empty”, of a bottle, a room or a purse, and the figurative “hollow, meaningless” (cuvinte goale in Eminescu).[8] Before a noun it also came to mean “the very image of”: e gol tată-său “he is the spit of his father”.[8][9]

The noun “empty space, gap” is quoted by Tiktin from Alecsandri and Vlahuță.[14] A (se) da de gol “to give (oneself) away” is old in the language.[8][3] Cihac counted 31 Romanian place names formed on the adjective, such as Golești.[15]

Timeline

  • c. 1563–1583 – goli “naked” in the Codicele Voronețean, the first record.[4][8]
  • 1574 – gol “naked” in the Tetraevanghel.[8]
  • 1582 – goli “naked” in the Palia.[8]
  • c. 1660–1670 – gol in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, for нагъ “naked”.[16]
  • 1688 – gol some twenty times in the Bucharest Bible.[17]
  • 1776 – figurative “lacking”, „Sânt gol de nestricăciunea cea dumnezeiască”, in a Menaion.[8]
  • 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses gol with Latin nudus and vacuus.[18]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of people: naked, without clothes on the body or part of it; by extension, poorly dressed, poor; of birds, featherless; of trees, leafless; of walls, bare.[3][4][1]
  2. Of land: not covered by vegetation or buildings; deserted;[3][4] sub cerul gol “in the open air”.[3][4]
  3. Of food: plain, with nothing added: pâine goală “dry bread”.[3][1]
  4. Of containers or rooms: empty; of bodies, hollow;[3][1] cu mâna goală “empty-handed”, pe stomacul gol “on an empty stomach”.[3][1]
  5. (figurative) Groundless, without substance: vorbe goale “empty words”.[3][9]

Noun

  1. Empty space, cavity, void;[3][1] gol de aer “air pocket”;[3][1] în gol “into the void; blankly; in vain”;[3][1] a umple un gol “to fill a gap”.[3][1]
  2. A place without vegetation or settlements.[3]

Word family

  • golan
  • golancă
  • golăneț
  • golaș
  • goli
  • golime
  • goliciune
  • dezgoli
  • Aromanian gol

Usage notes

A (se) da de gol means “to give (oneself) away, unmask”.[3] DEX 2009 numbers the sports term gol¹ and the Slavic adjective and noun gol².[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. gol
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 443
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1009
  5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. gol
  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, 398
  7. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 1, 262
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. gol
  9. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 567
  10. ^ Kurz, Josef; Hauptová, Zoe (eds.) (1958–1997), Slovník jazyka staroslověnského / Lexicon linguae palaeoslovenicae, 4 vols. + supplements, Praha: Academia; digital ed. gorazd.org
  11. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 176
  12. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 205
  13. ^ Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
  14. ^ 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. gol
  15. ^ Cihac, A. de (1879), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane II: Éléments slaves, magyars, turcs, grecs-moderne et albanais, Frankfurt am Main, p. 123
  16. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. gol
  17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Iov 1:21
  18. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 367

Related etymologies

  • spin · also from English
  • script · also from English
  • dolar · also from English
  • club · also from English
  • prea · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • înșela · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • pară · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • somn · also from Old Church Slavonic
Cite this entry

“Gol.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/gol. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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