informație

Forms

informație f (plural informații)^[1] The older form informațiune follows Latin informatio, -onis;^[2][3][4] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 has both forms.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French information and Latin īnfōrmātiō, one of the multiple etymologies of Romanian neologisms.^[5][6][7][1] Tiktin gives the New Latin word alone, and Negulici the Latin word.^[2][8] The Latin noun is formed on īnfōrmō (“to shape, form an idea of”) with the suffix -tiō, and meant “an outline, sketch” and “an idea, conception”.^[9][10] Within Romanian it can be analysed as from Romanian informa + -ție.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1782; he glosses the word “information, news”.^[2] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 defines it as the act of informing: searches and inquiries to find out the truth.^[8] Costinescu (1870) gives the legal sense, inquiries to uncover a crime.^[3] MDA2 dates it from Odobescu's writings, collected in 1887.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From “inquiry” and “report” the word came to mean any news or explanation about a person or a thing, and the material gathered for documentation.^[5][6] In the plural it also names intelligence about an enemy, as in serviciu de informații “intelligence service”.^[1] In the 20th century it became the central term of communication theory and cybernetics: each new element that a message carries beyond what is already known, as in teoria informației “information theory”.^[7][5] Biology has informație genetică “genetic information”.^[5]

Timeline

• 1782 – first record, in a document.^[2]
• 1848 – Negulici's dictionary of new words.^[8]
• 1870 – informație and informațiune in Costinescu's dictionary.^[3]
• 1887 – Odobescu's writings, MDA2's first record.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A piece of information; a communication or news that tells someone about a situation: Am primit o informație importantă.^[5][6]
2. An explanation about a person or thing; the whole material used for documentation; sources: o lucrare cu o informație bogată.^[5][6]
3. (information theory) Each new element, compared with what is already known, carried by a symbol or a group of symbols (a written text, a spoken message, images, an instrument's reading); teoria informației is the mathematical theory of the sources, channels and storage of information.^[5][6]
4. (biology) informație genetică: the whole genetic material of a cell, from which proteins are built.^[5][6]
5. (in the plural) intelligence, secret knowledge about an enemy.^[1]

Related words

• informa
• informare
• French information
• Latin īnfōrmātiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. informație
3. ^ a b c d Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 547
4. ^ a b 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. informație
5. ^ 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. 507
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1136
7. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. informație
8. ^ 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. informație
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press