locuință

Forms

locuință f (plural locuințe)^[1] The old form lăcuință is common until the 19th century: a manuscript of 1760, paraphrasing Genesis 49:13, has „să fie îndelungată lăcuința și sălașul tău” “may your dwelling and abode be long”.^[2][3] Old texts also have a plural locuinți / lăcuinți: „Să-şi clădească lăcuinţile regulate” “let them build their dwellings in order”.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian locui + -ință, from the verb “to dwell” with the abstract suffix.^{[6][4][5][1][2]} Scriban also derives it from the verb.^[7]

The verb locui itself is from Hungarian lakni (“to dwell”), a Hungarian word whose regular Romanian outcome was lăcui; it was later drawn towards loc (“place”).^[8][6] That is why the older form of the noun is lăcuință.^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1642.^[2] MDA2 and the DLR cite the Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of Mardarie (1649), where lăcuință glosses Slavonic words for “life” and “dwelling”.^[4][5][9] The sense was already “place where one lives”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Bucharest Bible of 1688 uses lăcuință many times, for example in Psalm 106:36.^[10] In the 18th and 19th centuries it was the usual word for a dwelling in legal and administrative texts: a settlement of 1818 speaks of peasants who have their lăcuință on the estates of private landowners, and a commercial code of 1840 of the place of someone's locuință.^[2] The DLR's 19th-century quotations have both forms, and DEX now marks lăcuință as obsolete.^[5][6]

Besides a house or flat, MDA2 records the rarer senses “place where someone is settled”, “grave” and “den or shelter of an animal”.^[4] Recent usage formed the compound locuință-tip “standard-design dwelling”, quoted from 1971.^[11]

Timeline

• 1642 – the first record that Tiktin gives.^[2]
• 1649 – lăcuință in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[9][4]
• 1688 – lăcuință in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]
• 1760 – lăcuința in a manuscript paraphrase of Genesis.^[2]
• 1818 – lăcuință “residence” of peasants on private estates.^[2]
• 1840 – locuință in a commercial code.^[2]
• 1971 – the compound locuință-tip.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dwelling, residence: a house, flat or other building where someone lives or can live; domicile.^[6][4][1]
2. (rare) The place where someone is settled.^[4]
3. (rare) A grave, as the last dwelling.^[4]
4. (by extension) The den or shelter of an animal.^[4]

Related words

• locui
• loc
• lăcaș

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. locuință
3. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 777
4. ^ 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, 1386
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. locuință
6. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 598
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 755
8. ^ 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. locui
9. ^ a b 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. lăcuință
10. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 106:36
11. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. locuință