loc

Forms

loc n (plural locuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin locus (“place, spot”), a word inherited by every Romance language.^{[2][3][1][4][5]} It keeps the same form in all four branches of Romanian: Aromanian loc, Megleno-Romanian loc and Istro-Romanian loc.^[2] Its Romance cognates include Italian luogo, Occitan loc, French lieu, Catalan lloc, and, as adverbs, Spanish luego and Portuguese logo.^[2][6]

The Latin word had an older form stlocus, and its further origin is unclear: a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to put, place”) is often given, but de Vaan rejects it because no suffix ⟨*-oko-⟩ is known, and leaves the question open.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears in the earliest Romanian texts: the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century has it in Psalm 13:5, and the later 16th-century psalters use it often.^[8] MDA2 dates its first record to a letter of 1521 published in Hurmuzaki's collection of documents.^[3] The DLR's first quotation, a document of 1521, speaks of the narrow place (locul cela strimtul) where the ships would pass, and the Codicele Voronețean, where the travellers cădzum în locu cu năsipu “fell into a place with sand” and left the ship.^[9] The sense in all of them is “place, spot”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

From the basic sense of a point or portion of space, the word came to name the space a body or a person occupies, a seat, a plot of land, a region or someone's native place, a rank or position, a passage in a book, and the right moment for something.^[2][11][12] Tiktin's quotations show the plot of land (loc de casă “building plot”), the homeland (de locul meu) and the theatre seat, and old chronicles use în loc for “on the spot, at once”.^[10]

Many phrases grew around it: a avea loc “to take place”, în loc de “instead of”, pe loc “immediately”, la un loc “together” and deloc “not at all”.^[2][12] Ciorănescu compares the negative sense of deloc with Catalan enlloc “nowhere”.^[2] In Muntenia and Maramureș de loc also means “at once”.^[13][14]

Its Romanian derivatives include înlocui “to replace” and alocuri “here and there”; the learned family of the same Latin root came from French in the 19th century: local, localitate, localiza, locatar.^[2]

Timeline

• early 16th century – loc in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[8]
• 1521 – a letter in Hurmuzaki's collection, the first record in MDA2.^[3][9]
• c. 1563–1583 – locu in the Codicele Voronețean.^[9]
• 1688 – hundreds of occurrences in the Bucharest Bible.^[15]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses locu with Latin locus, Hungarian hely and German Ort, and in locu with “instead”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A place, a point or portion of space.^[12][3][1]
2. The space a thing or person occupies; a seat or berth: Toate locurile din sală erau ocupate.^[12][11]
3. A region or area; a person's native place: E de loc din Ardeal.^[12][11]
4. A plot of land, ground: loc de casă “building plot”.^[10][12]
5. A position, rank or post in society or at work.^[2][12]
6. A passage in a written text.^[12][11]
7. The right moment or occasion: Nu e loc de glume acum.^[2][11]
8. In phrases: a avea loc “to take place”, în loc de “instead of”, pe loc “at once”, la un loc “together”.^[2][12]

Word family

• deloc
• înlocui
• înlocuitor
• alocuri

Related words

• local
• localitate
• locație
• locui
• locaș
• Latin locus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. loc
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1383
4. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5097
6. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 145
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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 13:5
9. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. loc
10. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. loc
11. ^ a b c d e Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 754
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 597
13. ^ Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. 237
14. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1925), Graiul și folklorul Maramureșului, București: Cultura Națională, p. 224
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 13:3
16. ^ 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