menajeră

Forms

menajeră f (plural menajere)^[1] The first record has the French spelling menagere: „Doamna Săftica se ocupă, ca o bună menagere, nu numai cu grădina” “Mrs Săftica, like a good housewife, looks not only after the garden”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French ménagère (“housewife”).^{[4][3][2][5][1]} The French noun is the feminine of ménager, formed on ménage (“household”).^[1] The dictionaries treat it under the adjective menajer “household, domestic”, from the same French word, while Wikționar derives it from that Romanian adjective.^[4][3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Ion Ionescu's Agricultura română din județul Dorohoi of 1866, in the old spelling menagere and the sense “housewife”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, “housewife”, is now rare.^[4][3] The sense “woman hired to run someone's household”, especially that of an unmarried man, is quoted from Caragiale and Hogaș.^[2][7] Costinescu and Alexi also record an obsolete masculine menajer “steward”.^[2] In the 1990s job advertisements extended the word to a cleaning woman in offices.^[8]

Timeline

• 1866 – menagere “housewife” in Ion Ionescu.^[3][2]
• 1929 – Șăineanu defines it as a woman who looks after a household.^[9]
• 1997 – menajeră “cleaning woman” in a job advertisement in România liberă.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A housekeeper or maid: a woman hired to look after someone's household.^[4][3][1]
2. (rare) A housewife.^[4][3]
3. A cleaning woman, especially in an office.^[8]

Related words

• menaj
• menajer
• French ménage

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. menajer
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1486
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 640
5. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. menajeră
6. ^ Wikționar (Romanian Wiktionary), ro.wiktionary.org
7. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 56
8. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. menajéră
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 394