instituție

Forms

instituție f (plural instituții)^[1] The older variant was instituțiune: „instituțiunea salutară a concursului” “the beneficial institution of the competitive examination”.^[2][3] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written институцие.^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French institution, with Latin institūtiō as a second model, one of the 19th-century neologisms with both a French and a Latin source.^[3][4][5][1] The DA gives the French word as the model.^[2] The Latin noun is formed on instituō (“to set up, establish”) with the suffix -tiō.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to before 1848, in a document published in the Uricariul: „Instituțiile primitive ale principatului” “the early institutions of the principality”.^[4][2] Negulici's dictionary of neologisms (1848) defines it as the act of establishing and the thing established, with the native equivalent așezământ.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The first senses were the act of founding and the thing founded: an establishment, a fundamental law, a political or social order.^[2][7] Costinescu (1870) adds a place of education.^[8] The DA quotes Alexandrescu on the old instituții that are fading away and Bălcescu on the instituții of a country.^[2]

In modern use the main sense is a public body or organisation with an administrative, cultural or social role; the abstract sense survives in phrases such as instituția căsătoriei “the institution of marriage”.^[3][4]

Timeline

• before 1848 – instituțiile in a document of the Uricariul.^[4][2]
• 1848 – defined in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[7]
• 1870 – instituție and instituțiune in Costinescu's dictionary.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. An institution: a body or organisation, often of the state, that carries out social, cultural or administrative work.^[3][4]
2. A form in which social relations are organised by legal rules in a field of life: instituția familiei “the institution of the family”; also institut.^[3][4]
3. An organisation with an international field of activity.^[3][4]

Related words

• institui
• institut
• Latin institūtiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. institui
3. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 512
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1144
5. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. instituție
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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. instituție
8. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 552