metodă

Forms

metodă f (plural metode)^[1] The first record has the Greek form methodos: „methodos prea folositori și prea trebuincios” “a most useful and necessary method”, in the title of Dimitrie Eustatievici's grammar.^[2][3] Older variants include the neuter metod (also spelled method, plural metoduri) and the feminine metoadă.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is a borrowing with several sources, what Romanian lexicography calls multiple etymology: the Academy dictionary and MDA2 name borrowed from Modern Greek μέθοδος (méthodos), Latin methodus, German Methode and French méthode.^[2][4] DEX gives the French, Latin and German words, and Wiktionary only the French.^[5][1] Tiktin takes it from the Greek or Latin word, directly or through other languages.^[3]

The Latin word is from Ancient Greek μέθοδος (méthodos, “pursuit, inquiry, method”), formed μετά (metá, “after”) and ὁδός (hodós, “way”).^[6][7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the title of Dimitrie Eustatievici's Romanian grammar of 1757, which calls itself a most useful and necessary methodos, a handbook of rules.^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The oldest sense, now dated, was a handbook setting out the rules of a discipline or an art (cartea metodului).^[2][4] The general sense, an ordered way of saying or doing something according to principles, is the main one in Costinescu's vocabulary of 1870, together with the ordering of material in a book and the classification of living things in natural history.^[8] Șăineanu still lists a primer of a language, as in metodă de limba engleză.^[9] In modern Romanian the word names above all a systematic way of research and the procedures used to reach an aim.^[5][10]

Timeline

• 1757 – methodos in the title of Eustatievici's grammar.^[2][3]
• 1870 – metodă “method, ordered procedure; textbook” in Costinescu.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A systematic way of research, of knowing and changing reality;^[5][4] cu metodă “methodically”.^[5][4]
2. A procedure or set of procedures used to reach an aim; a way of going about something.^[5][1]
3. A textbook setting out the rules for learning a discipline, a language or an instrument; the rules themselves.^[5][10]

Related words

• metodic
• metodică
• metodologie
• Ancient Greek μέθοδος (méthodos)

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. metodă
3. ^ 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. metodă
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, 1499
5. ^ 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. 646
6. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 890
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 93
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 396
10. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. metodă