lampă

Forms

lampă f (plural lămpi)^[1] An older plural lampe occurs in Alecsandri: „Perdelele-s lăsate și lampele aprinse” “the curtains are drawn and the lamps lit”.^[2][3] Maramureș has loampă and lompă: „Arde loampa-n tătă casa” “the lamp burns in every house”.^[4] Regional speech also has lambă, leampă and liampă.^[5][2][6]

Etymology

It is a borrowing with several sources at once.^[6][2] DEX names borrowed from German Lampe, Russian лампа (lampa) and French lampe;^[7][5] MDA2 adds Modern Greek λάμπα (lámpa).^[7][5] Wiktionary gives German alone, Șăineanu and CADE German, and Scriban French and German.^{[1][8][9][10]} Ciorănescu and Tiktin start from Italian lampa, which reached Romanian by several routes: German, French, Hungarian lámpa, Russian, Greek, Turkish and Bulgarian ламба (lamba).^[6][2] The regional variant ⟨lambă⟩ has the /mb/ of the Greek and Turkish form: the Greek word is pronounced with /b/ after /m/, and BER lists the Romanian variant among the loans from the Greek word.^[11]

The western words go back to Latin lampas (“torch, lamp”) through its Late Latin accusative lampada;^[12][13] German took its word from French in the 13th century.^[12][13] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek λαμπάς (lampás, “torch”), from λάμπω (lámpō, “to shine”).^[14][1] Compare Aromanian lampă or lambă, from Greek, and Megleno-Romanian lambă, from Bulgarian.^[15][16]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1831;^[2][5] MDA2's is Iordache Golescu's manuscript dictionary, the Condica limbii rumânești of about 1832.^[2][5] Both refer to the oil lamp, a vessel with a burning wick.^[17][18]

Semantic evolution

The first lamps were vessels of oil, later of paraffin, with a wick, a chimney and a glass.^[18][9] With electric light the word passed to the electric lamp, and in the 20th century lampă de radio named the electron tube of a radio set.^[5][7][3] Tools that give a flame rather than light are lamps too: lampă de sudat “welding torch”, lampă de lipit “soldering lamp”.^[7] In slang it means “eye”, and a vorbi la lampă is “to talk to no one, not to be listened to”.^[6][5] In Maramureș lompă also means the paraffin burned in the lamp.^[4]

The derivatives include lampagiu and lampist “lamplighter”;^[6] lămpaș “paraffin lamp” is a separate loan from lámpás, and lampadar and lampion come from French.^[6]

Timeline

• 1831 – first record.^[2]
• c. 1832 – in Iordache Golescu's Condica limbii rumânești.^[5]
• 1870 – Costinescu defines it as a vessel of oil with a wick, synonymous with lanternă and felinar.^[17]
• 1931 – CADE records the electric lamp and the spirit lamp for boiling water.^[9]
• 1955–1957 – lampă de radio “electron tube” in the DLRLC.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lamp: a device that gives light by burning a fuel or by electricity: lampă cu petrol, lampă de masă.^[7][9][1]
2. A lamp used for signalling or control;^[5] (mining) a safety lamp for underground work.^[5]
3. lampă de radio: an electron tube.^[7][6]
4. A portable device giving a hot flame: lampă de sudat, lampă de lipit “blowtorch”.^[7][19]
5. lampă fulger: a camera flash.^[7]
6. (slang) An eye.^[6]

Word family

• lampagiu
• lampist
• lămpărie
• lămpiță
• lămpuță

Related words

• lămpaș
• lampadar
• lampion
• lanternă

Usage notes

The plural is lămpi;^[3][2] lampe is old and rare.^[3][2] A separate word lambă, from Turkish, names a chain or rope on a peasant cart and a tongue joining two boards.^[20][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. lampă
3. ^ a b c d e Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 721
4. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica
5. ^ 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, 1308
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. lampă
7. ^ 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. 576
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 355
9. ^ a b c d Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. lampă
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 726
11. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 3, 299
12. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 557
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. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
15. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 211
16. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 164
17. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 14
18. ^ 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. lampă
19. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. lampă
20. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1306
21. ^ DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 575