medicină

Forms

medicină f (uncountable)^[1] Old forms include medeținei: „Dumnealui Cihac, doctorul medeținei și al hirurghiei” “Mr Cihac, doctor of medicine and of surgery” (Albina românească, 1829).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin medicīna (“the art of healing; remedy”).^[4][3][5][6] For the old and regional sense “medicine, drug”, DEX names German Medizin and Russian медицина (medicina).^[4] MDA2 gives all three as sources, and Wiktionary only the German word.^[4][3][1] Tiktin and DN add Italian medicina, and DN compares French médecine.^[5][7]

The Latin word is the noun use of the feminine of medicīnus (“of healing”), from medicus (“doctor”), from medeor (“to heal”).^[1][8][9] The same Latin word reached German in the 15th century, with both senses, the science and the drug.^[10][9] Graur lists it with medic, medicament and medita among the Romanian descendants of the Latin family.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Nicolae Costin's chronicle, about 1710, in a list of captives that included “one doctor of medicine”.^[2][5] MDA2 cites the same passage of the Letopisețe edition.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 1820s and 1830s the word spread with the new press: Albina românească and Curierul românesc write of doctors of medicine and of the first medical book in Romanian.^[2] Negulici's 1848 dictionary of neologisms defines it as the art of restoring and keeping health, and Costinescu in 1870 lists set phrases with their French equivalents, such as medicină legală “forensic medicine” and medicină veterinară.^[12][13] Beside the science, the word also meant a medicine, a drug, now old and regional, with the plural medicini: Negruzzi writes that no medicine worked on someone any more.^[14][4] Colloquially it names the faculty of medicine.^[4][3]

Timeline

• c. 1710 – doctor de medicină in Nicolae Costin's chronicle.^[2][5]
• 1829 – medeținei and medicina in Albina românească and Curierul românesc.^[2]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[12]
• 1870 – medicină legală and medicină veterinară in Costinescu's dictionary.^[13]
• 1886 – “medical science; medicine, drug” in Barcianu's dictionary.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. medicine: the science of keeping and restoring health, which studies the body and its functions, the causes of diseases and the means of diagnosing, treating and preventing them;^[4][3] medicină legală: forensic medicine;^[4][3] medicină veterinară: veterinary medicine.^[4][3]
2. (colloquial) The faculty of medicine: a intrat la medicină “he got into medical school”.^[4][3]
3. (dated, regional) A medicine, a drug; also a treatment.^[4][3]

Related words

• medic
• medicament
• medicinal
• Latin medicus

Usage notes

In the sense “drug” the word has a plural, medicini or medicine; in the sense of the science it has none.^[4][14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. medicină
3. ^ 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, 1479
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 636
5. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. medicină
6. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 793
7. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. medicină
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
10. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
11. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 60
12. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. 256
13. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 81
14. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 50
15. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 376