meniu

Forms

meniu n (plural meniuri)^[1] It was first written as in French: Caragiale has „otărisem un menu vrednic de-un epicurean inteligent ca tine” “I had settled on a menu worthy of a clever epicurean like you”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French menu.^{[3][2][4][1][5]} The French noun, recorded from 1718, meant a detailed list of the dishes of a meal, from the phrase par le menu (“in detail”); it is the adjective “small, fine” used as a noun, and goes back to Latin minūtus (“small, minute”), the past participle of minuō (“to lessen”).^[6][1] The computing sense followed English menu, with French as a parallel model.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and the DLR quote it first from Caragiale, in the French spelling menu, with the sense “the dishes served at a meal”;^[3][2] MDA2 gives 1930, the year of the edition it cites.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is the set of dishes served at a meal; from it come the list of these dishes and the card on which a restaurant prints its dishes and drinks with their prices.^[4][3] The phrase meniu fix names a set lunch at a reduced price.^[4][3] In computing it names the list of options a program shows on the screen.^[5][7]

Timeline

• 1718 – French menu “list of dishes”.^[6]
• before 1930 – menu in Caragiale.^[3][2]
• 2001 – the computing sense in the press.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The dishes served at a meal.^[4][3][1]
2. A menu: the list of a restaurant's dishes and drinks with their prices;^[4][3] meniu fix “set lunch”.^[4][3]
3. (computing) A list of options shown on the screen.^[5][7]

Related words

• mărunt
• French menu

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. meniu
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, 1487
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 640
5. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. meniu
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c d Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. meniu