memorie

Forms

memorie f (plural memorii)^[1] Negulici's dictionary of 1848, in the transitional alphabet, explains the word by ținere de minte “keeping in mind”.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin memoria (“memory”), with Italian memoria and French mémoire as further models.^[3][4][5][1] Tiktin gives Latin and Italian, the neologism dictionaries Latin, Italian and French.^[6][7][8] Ciorănescu dates the Latin loan to the 19th century.^[9]

The Latin noun is formed memor (“mindful, remembering”) with the suffix -ia.^[10][1] The computing sense was taken from the French word in that use, with English memory beside it.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1798, in Molnar's Retorică: „Memoria ține și păzeaște în minte câte au aflat ritorul” “memory holds and keeps in mind all that the orator has found”.^[6][5] MDA2 and the DLR cite an Italian–Romanian manuscript in Göttingen first;^[12] MDA2's year 1935 is that of its edition.^[4][5] Early texts gloss the new word with the native aducere aminte “remembering”, as in „memoria (aducerea aminte)” in a text of 1813.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was the faculty of remembering, and the word soon also meant the mind as the seat of memory and the act of keeping something in mind.^[5][3] Costinescu (1870) gives the funeral formulas spre fericita memorie “to the blessed memory” and the phrase de virtuoasă memorie “of virtuous memory” after French.^[12] The phrase din memorie “by heart” and the expression în memoria cuiva “in someone's memory” are in the modern dictionaries.^[3][4]

In the 20th century the word was applied to the storage unit of a computer.^[3][4] Dimitrescu records this sense from 1975 in the press, after technical dictionaries of 1960 and 1967.^[11] Ciorănescu lists among the related loans memoriu “petition, report”, from French mémoire, and memorabil, memorialist, comemora and imemorial.^[9]

Timeline

• 1798 – memoria “memory” in Molnar's Retorică, the first dated record.^[6][5]
• 1813 – „memoria (aducerea aminte)”, glossed with the native phrase.^[5]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[2]
• 1870 – the funeral formulas spre fericita memorie in Costinescu.^[12]
• 1975 – the computing sense in the press.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. memory: the mental process of taking in, recognizing and recalling past sensations, feelings and knowledge; the mind as its seat;^[7] din memorie “by heart”.^[3][4]
2. remembrance, recollection; the memory that posterity keeps of famous people and events;^[7] în memoria cuiva “in memory of someone”.^[3][4]
3. (computing) The part of a computer in which instructions and data are stored.^[3][7]

Related words

• memoriu
• memorabil
• memoriza
• comemora
• minte

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. s.v. memorie
3. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 640
4. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1486
5. ^ 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. memorie
6. ^ 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. memorie
7. ^ a b c d Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. memorie
8. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. memorie
9. ^ a b 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. memorie
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. memorie
12. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 85