infecție

Forms

infecție f (plural infecții)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French infection.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} NODEX names Latin infectio beside the French word as a second source.^[6] The French noun goes back to Old French infection,^[1] and the Latin one is formed on īnficiō (“to stain, taint”) with the suffix -tiō.^[1]

The 19th-century dictionaries also have the longer form infecțiune, shaped on the Latin ending;^[7][8][3] DEX still lists it as a variant.^[7][8][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms of 1848, which explains infecție as a great stench, a foul smell, and as contagion.^[9] Pontbriant's dictionary of 1862 has infectiune with the French glosses “infection” and “great stench”.^[7] MDA2 dates the word only to 1910, to Vasile Bianu's household medical dictionary.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word came in with two senses, the stench of rotting matter and the spread of a contagion.^[9][7] In 1869 Barițiu gave infectiune among the Romanian equivalents of a Hungarian word for contagion, beside molimă “epidemic”.^[10] The CADE of 1931 lists the stench first and the disease caught by contagion second, with the phrase focar de infecție “source of infection”.^[11]

In modern Romanian the medical sense comes first: the entry of germs, viruses or parasites into the body and the reaction of the tissues.^[3][2] The stench is a secondary sense, which NODEX labels colloquial and rare, and a figurative sense “moral contagion” or “moral decay” grew out of it.^[6][4][3]

Timeline

• 1848 – infecție “great stench; contagion” in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[9]
• 1862 – infectiune “infection, great stench” in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[7]
• 1869 – infectiune “contagion” in Barițiu's Hungarian–Romanian dictionary.^[10]
• 1886 – infectiune in Barcianu's dictionary, glossed with German words for contagion.^[8]
• 1910 – the medical sense in Bianu's household medical dictionary.^[2]
• 1931 – the CADE has both infecțiune and infecție, and the phrase focar de infecție.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. infection: the entry and growth of pathogenic agents (bacteria, viruses, parasites) in the body, and the reaction of the tissues to them, with inflammation, suppuration and the like: o infecție a plăgii “a wound infection”.^[3][2][1]
2. A foul smell, a stench, as of rotting matter;^[3][4][6] (figurative) moral contagion or decay.^[3][4][6]

Related words

• French infection
• Latin infectio

Usage notes

Focar de infecție is a source of infection, in the medical and the figurative sense.^[12][11] The variant infecțiune is dated.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1135
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 506
4. ^ a b c d Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. infecție
5. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. infecție
6. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. infecție
7. ^ a b c d e Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 346
8. ^ a b c Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 279
9. ^ 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. s.v. infecție
10. ^ a b Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 459
11. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. infecțiune
12. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 515