lege

Forms

lege f (plural legi)^[1] Old texts write leage, with the diphthong: „Credzu tuturoru câte-su întru leage și întru scripturile prorociloru” “I believe all that is in the law and in the writings of the prophets” (Codicele Voronețean).^[2] MDA2 records a Transylvanian form lejă; in Maramureș leje means “court, trial”.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lēx (“law”), from the accusative lēgem, a word kept by the Romance languages.^{[5][3][2][6][7][1]} The Aromanian cognate is leage.^[5] The Romance cognates include Italian legge, French loi, Occitan lei, Spanish ley and Portuguese lei.^[5][7] Ciorănescu, after Philippide, also compares the Albanian word for “law”, ligj.^[5][1] The Latin noun is usually derived from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to gather”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are religious: the Hurmuzaki psalter, of the early 16th century, says of the Israelites that „în leage lui nu vrură a îmbla” “they would not walk in his law”.^[2][8] MDA2 dates the word from the Codicele Voronețean, and Tiktin from the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th-century texts the word means a divine commandment, the body of religious rules, and the Law of Moses: legea veche “the Old Testament”, legea nouă “the New Testament”.^[2][3] From this came “religion, faith”, as in legea turcească “the Turkish faith”, and the oath pe legea mea! “upon my faith!”.^[9][10] Ciorănescu stresses that this sense is old Romance: Spanish, Galician and Old French had it too.^[5] Pușcariu cites Latin inscriptions where lex already means “religion”.^[6] Ciorănescu therefore rejects Șăineanu's view that Romanian took the sense from Slavonic zakonŭ, which means both “law” and “religion”.^[5]

The secular senses, a rule set by authority and the law of the state, run beside the religious ones; the older language also used lege for a judgement or trial: chroniclers write of asking the sultan for lege against a prince.^[9][5] The scientific sense, a necessary and regular relation between phenomena, belongs to the modern language.^[10]

Timeline

• early 16th century – leage “God's law” in the Hurmuzaki psalter.^[2][8]
• 1560 – leagea mea “my law” in a text printed in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni.^[2]
• c. 1563–1583 – the Codicele Voronețean.^[3][2]
• 1660 – legii glosses Slavonic “dogma” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – “the commandments written in the law of Moses” in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A binding rule laid down by the supreme authority; a law of nature, a regular and necessary relation between phenomena: lege fonetică “sound law”.^[10][1]
2. (law) An act passed by the legislature; any normative act: lege fundamentală “constitution”, lege nescrisă “unwritten law, custom”.^[10]
3. (popular) A lawsuit, trial.^[10][4]
4. Legality, constitutionality.^[10]
5. (dated) religion, faith; custom, tradition: pe legea mea! “upon my word!”.^[10][1]

Word family

• legiui
• legiuire
• nelegiuire
• legiuit
• nelegiuit
• legiuitor
• fărădelege

Related words

• legal
• legitim
• Aromanian leage

Usage notes

Fără (de) lege “sinful, wicked” gave the noun fărădelege “iniquity, crime”.^[10][9] DLR and MDA2 also record an obsolete Latinist verb lege “to read”, which has a separate source, Latin legere.^[12][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lege¹
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1340
4. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. lege
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. lege
6. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 83
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5008
8. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 88:30
9. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. lege
10. ^ 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. 584
11. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. legii
12. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. lege²