lagăr

Forms

lagăr n (plural lagăre)^[1] Old and regional forms include loagher, in Ienăchiță Văcărescu's history: „Ne-au chemat ca să mergem a doa zi afară dân cetate la loagher” “they called us to go out of the city to the camp the next day”.^[2][3] Gheorghe Șincai wrote lagher: „au poruncit să se facă lagher cu tabără” “he ordered a camp to be set up”.^[2][3] In Transylvania and Banat the form loagăr is common in soldiers' songs.^[4][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Lager (“camp; bearing”), the source given by all the dictionaries.^[5][6][3][1] In Transylvania and Banat it came from the language of the Austrian army, as Borcia and Șăineanu note.^[4][7] Borcia adds that in Romania proper it may also come from Russian.^[4] In the DA's view the military sense reached Wallachia and Moldavia through Russian лагерь (lagerʹ), itself from German, and the DLR and MDA2 name both languages.^[8][2][9] Scriban derives it from Russian alone.^[10] Ciorănescu compares Bulgarian лагер (lager), which the Bulgarian etymological dictionary takes from Russian or German.^[5][11]

The German word continues lëger and Old High German legar (“place to lie”), from Proto-West Germanic *legr, and belongs with liegen (“to lie”).^[12][13][1] The form with ⟨a⟩ spread from East Central German through Luther.^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1782 published in the historical series of the Romanian Academy's Annals, with the sense “military camp”.^[3] MDA2 dates it to 1785, in a translation of the Abbé Delaporte's travel book.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The military camp is the oldest sense; in the 19th century the word also meant the Roman fortified camp, and Heliade listed lagăr among the words people used for tabără “camp”.^[2] Șăineanu and Scriban record a figurative sense “party, side”.^[8][7][10] In the 20th century it came to mean a camp where prisoners of war or political opponents are held, as in lagăr de concentrare “concentration camp”, and in Marxist usage the bloc of states of one political camp.^[9][14] In engineering, after German, it names the bearing that supports a shaft.^[8][3][6]

Timeline

• 1782 – lagăr “military camp” in a document of the time.^[3]
• 1785 – in a Romanian translation of Delaporte's travel book.^[9]
• 1829 – lagărul (campul) near Cernavodă in the newspaper Curierul Românesc.^[2]
• 1929 – the figurative sense “party” in Șăineanu's dictionary.^[7]
• 1931 – the machine sense “bearing” in CADE.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A camp where troops stay in tents or barracks; an encampment.^[6][9]
2. A place where prisoners of war or, under totalitarian regimes, people seen as enemies are held under guard: lagăr de concentrare “concentration camp”, lagăr de muncă “labour camp”.^[6][9]
3. (historical) A bloc of states or people fighting for the same political idea.^[6][16]
4. (engineering) A machine part that supports and guides an axle or shaft; a bearing, a palier.^[6][17]

Word family

• lăgări

Usage notes

A separate word lagăr “hunter”, recorded in Banat, comes from Jäger.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lagăr
3. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. lagăr
4. ^ a b c Borcia, Ioan (1903–1904), Deutsche Sprachelemente im Rumänischen, Leipzig (in Weigand, Zehnter Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig), p. 58
5. ^ a b 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. lagăr
6. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 575
7. ^ a b c Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 354
8. ^ a b c 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. lagăr
9. ^ 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, 1304
10. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 725
11. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 3, 269
12. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 555
13. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
14. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 719
15. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. lagăr
16. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. lagăr
17. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. lagăr