haos

Forms

haos n (plural haosuri)^[1] An older variant is caos.^[2] Costinescu noted in 1870 that some wrote and pronounced it caosu.^[3]

Etymology

DEX, MDN and NODEX give borrowed from French chaos and directly borrowed from Latin chaos, and MDA2 French alone.^{[2][4][5][6][1]} Tiktin gives Modern Greek χάος (cháos) and compares German Chaos.^[7] Marcu and Maneca give Greek and compare the French word.^[8]

The Latin word was taken from Ancient Greek χάος (kháos, “chasm, empty space”), the first state of the universe in Hesiod.^[9][10] Beekes and Wiktionary relate it to χάσκω (kháskō, “to gape”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Nicolae Costin's chronicle of about 1710.^[7] MDA2 cites the same chronicle; its year 1601 comes from the chronicle's title, which runs to that year.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is the formless state of matter before the world was ordered, in ancient myth and philosophy, and the chaos personified as a god.^[2][6] From it come the figurative “great confusion, disorder” and “a deep abyss”.^[3][6][11] Tiktin quotes Eminescu: „Din haos Doamne-am apărut Și m-aș întoarce-n haos” “from chaos, Lord, I came, and would go back to chaos”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1710 – first record, in Nicolae Costin's chronicle.^[7]
• 1870 – Costinescu gives the figurative sense, “a library that is a chaos”.^[3]
• 1893–1895 – Damé glosses haos de patimi urâte “a chaos of ugly passions”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (mythology, philosophy) The primordial state of disorder in which matter was thought to exist before the universe; the boundless dark space filled with mists in some theogonies; the god personifying it.^[2][6]
2. (figurative) Great confusion, disorder; a muddle: un haos de hârtii “a chaos of papers”.^[2][5]
3. (figurative) An abyss.^[6][11]

Word family

• haotic

Related words

• Ancient Greek χάος (kháos)

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. 459
3. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 510
4. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. haos
5. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. haos
6. ^ 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, 1041
7. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. háos
8. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. haos
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 440
12. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. haos