intersecție

Forms

intersecție f (plural intersecții)^[1] Older texts have the variant intersecțiune, plural intersecțiuni.^[2][3] Melik's geometry, quoted by the DA, writes: „Intersecțiunea a două planuri este o linie dreaptă” “the intersection of two planes is a straight line”.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French intersection, and it is also borrowed from Latin intersectiō, a 19th-century neologism of geometry.^[2][5][6][1] The DA calls it a neologism after French and compares the Latin.^[4] The French word was taken from Latin about 1390; the Latin word, an architects' term, is formed from inter- and sectiō (“cutting”), from secō (“to cut”).^[7] Graur lists the word in the family of the Latin verb, with secție, sector and segment.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Negulici's vocabulary of 1848, which defines it as the point where two lines or two planes cut or meet.^[9] MDA2 cites Melik's geometry of 1897 as its first record.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word entered as a term of geometry, for the point or line where two lines or surfaces cut each other, the only sense in Negulici, Costinescu and the DA.^[9][3][4] The everyday sense “crossroads, place where roads cross” came into use in the 20th century: the DA quotes Cezar Petrescu on cars stopped at the intersection of the boulevards.^[4] DEX now puts the road sense first.^[5] In set theory it names the set of elements common to two or more sets.^[2][6] French had followed a similar path: the geometrical sense from 1640, and the set-theory sense in the 20th century.^[7]

Timeline

• 1848 – first record, in Negulici's vocabulary.^[9]
• 1870 – intersecție and intersecțiune in Costinescu's dictionary, glossed with French intersection.^[3]
• 1897 – intersecțiune in Melik's geometry.^[2][4]
• 1930 – the DA quotes a newspaper using it figuratively, of a writer standing at the meeting point of Christian virtues.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A place where two roads cross, a crossroads, an intersection.^[5][2]
2. (mathematics) The set of points common to two lines, surfaces or volumes.^[5][2]
3. (mathematics) The set of elements common to two or more sets.^[5][6]

Related words

• secție
• secțiune
• Latin intersectiō

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1152
3. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 556
4. ^ 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. intersecție
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 517
6. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. intersecție
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 85
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. intersecție