mediu

Forms

mediu adjective m or n (feminine singular medie, plural medii); noun n (plural medii)^[1][2] An older adjective meziu, plural mezi or mezii, occurs in Odobescu: „Unul de vârstă mezie, purtând îmbrăcăminte ungurești” “one of them of middle age, wearing Hungarian dress”.^[3][4] The noun also had a rare variant medium.^[3]

Etymology

The adjective is borrowed from Latin medius (“middle”).^[4][3][2][1] Gabinschi takes it from Latin with Italian medio as a model, and DLR and MDA2 compare mezzo for the older form meziu.^[5][4][3] The noun is borrowed from Latin medium (“the middle, centre”), the neuter of the same adjective used as a noun.^[2][4][6] Ciorănescu dates the noun to the 18th century.^[7] The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *meðios and Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“between”), and is cognate with Ancient Greek μέσος (mésos) and Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌳𐌾𐌹𐍃 (midjis).^[1][8]

Romanian also kept the Latin word by inheritance as miez “core, kernel”, which is thus a doublet of this word.^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ciorănescu dates the noun to the 18th century.^[7] The adjective is first recorded in Budai-Deleanu's Romanian–German lexicon, which Tiktin and MDA2 date to 1818.^[9][3] Negulici in 1848 defines the noun as a means of reconciliation, a middle term, the middle and a compensation.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The noun first meant “middle” and “means”, Ciorănescu's “mediation”.^[10][7] MDA2 dates its main modern sense, the surroundings in which living things are found, to Laurian and Massim's dictionary of 1871, and DLR quotes it from Anghel, Marinescu and Babeș, with mediu de cultură “culture medium”.^[3][4] The social sense “milieu, the society one lives in”, the physical sense “medium in which a phenomenon takes place” and the spiritualist medium followed.^[2][3]

Laurian and Massim give the adjective with the alternative pronunciation miediu.^[11] It is used in school and logic terms: învățământ mediu “secondary education”, termen mediu “the middle term of a syllogism”, and, in the plural mezi, the middle terms of a proportion in mathematics.^[4][2] Figuratively it means “moderate, balanced”.^[2][12]

Timeline

• 18th century – the noun, after Ciorănescu.^[7]
• 1818 – the adjective in Budai-Deleanu's lexicon.^[9][3]
• 1848 – Negulici: the noun, “means of reconciliation; middle term”.^[10]
• 1871 – the noun “surroundings” in Laurian and Massim's dictionary.^[3][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. middle, medium: being in the middle in position, size, quality or intensity, as in un bărbat de înălțime medie, învățământ mediu secondary education and termen mediu the middle term of a syllogism.^[2][3]
2. (figurative) moderate, balanced.^[2]
3. average, representing a mean: temperatura medie a lunii.^[2]

Noun

1. The environment: the conditions (relief, climate, soil and so on) in which living things live, with mediu intern the body fluids around the cells and mediu de cultură a culture medium for microbes.^[2][3]
2. The social environment, milieu: the society in which someone lives.^[2]
3. (physics) A medium: a substance or field in which a physical phenomenon takes place.^[2]
4. (spiritualism) A medium, a person thought able to communicate with spirits.^[2]

Related words

• miez
• medie
• Latin medius

Usage notes

DEX 2009 has two headwords: mediu¹, the noun from Latin medium, and mediu², the adjective from Latin medius.^[2] Since medium is the neuter of medius, they are one Latin word, and this entry covers both.^[6] The feminine medie is also a noun, “average, mean”, as in în medie “on average”.^[2] Evul Mediu is “the Middle Ages”.^[13]

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 k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 637
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1480
4. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. mediu
5. ^ a b Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 129
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d 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. mediu
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. mediu
10. ^ a b c 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. s.v. mediu
11. ^ Laurian, A. T.; Massim, I. C. (1871–1876), Dictionariulu limbei romane, 2 vols., Bucuresci: Noua Typographia a Laboratoriloru Romani, p. s.v. mediu
12. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. mediu
13. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 51