mason

Forms

mason m (plural masoni)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French maçon (“mason; freemason”), short for franc-maçon (“freemason”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The French word for a builder, recorded about 1155, is usually traced to Frankish *makjo (“builder”), from a verb meaning “to make”.^[6] The French compound (1737) adapts English freemason, a name first given to master masons who travelled freely from job to job and knew each other by passwords and secret signs.^[6] Romanian also uses the full form francmason, and Ciorănescu compares farmazon.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ciorănescu places the word in the 19th century, the time of the first lodges in Bucharest; the oldest he names, Steaua Dunării, was founded in 1857.^[2] Scriban's dictionary of 1939 lists it as “freemason”.^[5] MDA2's first record is Camil Petrescu's novel Un om între oameni (1953), where freemasons are said to have plotted the French revolutions in secret.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

In Romanian the word has only the sense “freemason”; the French sense “builder” did not come with it.^[3][5] Ciorănescu adds that from 1880 to 1914 the grand lodge of Bucharest directed the lodges of Austria and Greece.^[2] The adjective masonic and the noun masonerie were formed from it.^[2]

Timeline

• 1939 – mason “freemason” in Scriban's dictionary.^[5]
• 1953 – in Camil Petrescu's Un om între oameni, MDA2's first record.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A freemason, a member of a lodge of freemasonry.^[3][4][1]

Word family

• masonic
• masonerie

Related words

• francmason
• farmazon

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. mason
3. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 622
4. ^ 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, 1440
5. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 779
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mason