literă

Forms

literă f (plural litere)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin littera (“letter of the alphabet”), a learned loan.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Ciorănescu dates it to the 19th century.^[2] The DLR names French lettre and Italian lettera beside the Latin word.^[6] These and Spanish letra are the inherited Romance forms of the Latin word.^[7]

The Latin word has no accepted etymology.^[8][1] Old Latin also spelled it leitera.^[9] De Vaan rejects an older derivation from linō (“to smear”), the letter as a smeared sign, as morphologically unconvincing.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Samuil Micu's translation of Baumeister's Logic (Buda, 1799), which explains the new word through the old one: „Ce romanii cheamă litere, slovenii zic slove” “What the Romans call litere, the Slavs call slove”.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word came in with the Transylvanian School and replaced the older slovă and buche of the Cyrillic age; Șincai and Maior used it in their histories.^[6][3] From the written sign it passed to the printer's type, to the strict wording of a text as against its spirit, and in the plural to literary studies.^[10][11] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 already has om de litere “man of letters” and belle-litere beside French lettres.^[12]

Timeline

• 1799 – Samuil Micu's translation of Baumeister's Logic, the first record.^[3][6]
• 1825 – literă glossed with Latin litera and German Buchstabe in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[13]
• 1870 – om de litere “man of letters” in Costinescu.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A letter of the alphabet, a written sign that usually stands for one phoneme;^[10][3][1] literă mare “capital letter”, literă mică “small letter”.^[10][3][1]
2. (printing) A piece of type, a small block bearing a letter or figure in relief.^[10][11]
3. (figurative) The strict, literal wording of a text: litera legii “the letter of the law”.^[10][5]
4. (in the plural) The study of literature; the humanities: facultate de litere.^[10][14][15]

Related words

• literal
• literar
• literat
• literatură
• slovă
• Latin littera

Usage notes

A rămâne literă moartă is said of a law or treaty that is no longer applied, and literă cu literă means “to the last detail”.^[10] Older and popular variants include litără and the regional litră.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. literă
3. ^ 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, 1379
4. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. literă
5. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. literă
6. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. literă
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 751
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 596
11. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 771
12. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 42
13. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 356
14. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. literă
15. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. literă