ladă

Forms

ladă f (plural lăzi)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Lade (“box, chest”), a word of Transylvania and the Banat.^[2][3][1] Ciorănescu takes the German word via Hungarian láda, as the DAR does, or through a Slavic form: Polish lada, found also in Croatian, Slovene and Ruthenian.^[4] The DLR and MDA2 name both German and Hungarian, and Tiktin says the German word may have come indirectly.^[5][6][3] Șăineanu thought of a Transylvanian Saxon intermediary.^[7]

The Hungarian word, recorded from 1494, is itself a loan of the same German word, “box, container, coffin, drawer”.^[8][9] The German word goes back to Middle High German lade and is formed on the verb laden (“to load”), so it first meant “something loaded”.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is the Palia de la Orăștie of 1581–1582, at Exodus 25:21, where the word names the Ark of the Covenant.^[3] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it to gloss Slavonic words for the ark and a chest.^[12] The DLR starts its quotations with the Halima of 1783: a box six paces long and four wide that a carpenter is told to make.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is a large box of wood, metal or cardboard for keeping or carrying things.^[2][5] In the village it was the painted chest with a lid in which clothes, linen and money were kept, the dowry chest (ladă de zestre), and the chests painted with flowers around Brașov gave the name ladă brașovenească.^[3][6][13] The old sense of the Ark of the Covenant survives in lada legii.^[6] In Transylvania and the Banat the word also means “coffin” and “drawer”.^[4][3][14] Proverbs grew around the chest: lada la mine și cheia la tine “I am in your hands”, and atâta tot și lada-n pod “that is all there is”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1581–1582 – first record, for the Ark of the Covenant in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[3]
• c. 1660 – the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss words for “ark, chest” with it.^[12]
• 1688 – the plural lăzi in the Bucharest Bible.^[15]
• 1783 – ladă “large wooden box” in the Halima.^[5][6]
• 1801 – Klein glosses it with Latin cista “chest”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A crate or large box of boards, sheet metal or cardboard, often with a lid, in which things are kept or carried;^[2][6] ladă de gunoi “dustbin”, ladă frigorifică “chest freezer”.^[2][6]
2. A chest, a long wooden piece of furniture with a lid for clothes, bedding, money or books;^[6][3] ladă de zestre “dowry chest”.^[6][3]
3. ladă de bani, ladă de fier: a safe.^[6]
4. (regional, Transylvania, Banat) A coffin.^[4][14]
5. (regional, Transylvania, Banat) A drawer.^[4][3]

Word family

• lădiță

Usage notes

The plural is lăzi;^[3] Tiktin records the diminutives lăduță, lădiță and lădișoară and the augmentative lădoi.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 574
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. ladă
4. ^ a b c d Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. ladă
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. ladă
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1304
7. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 354
8. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
9. ^ Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó
10. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
11. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
12. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 719
14. ^ a b Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 1, 165
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition)
16. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study)