milion

Forms

milion n (plural milioane)^[1] Old texts have a variant miliun, plural miliunuri.^[2]

Etymology

In the modern language it is borrowed from French million.^[3][4][1] Ciorănescu adds that it came partly through Polish milion in the 17th century.^[5] For the older writers the DLR names several sources: Modern Greek μιλλιοῦνι (milliúni), Polish, German Million, Italian milione and Russian миллион (million).^[4][2] Tiktin takes it from Italian through various intermediaries, and Gáldi thinks the form in Klein's dictionary of 1801 is probably the German word, while the old Moldavian of Miron Costin may have had it through Polish.^[6][7]

The French word was borrowed from Italian.^[8][1] Italian formed it from mille (“thousand”) with the augmentative suffix -one, first in the sense “a great quantity”.^[9][10] The Italian numeral is from Latin mīlle.^[10] Aromanian miliune came from Italian through Greek.^[5][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and the DLR date the first record to 1645, in a Romanian translation of Herodotus: „1 milion, adică 1000 de mii de stănj[eni]” “one million, that is, 1000 thousands of fathoms”.^[6][4] Miron Costin writes of „două milioane să dea leșilor bani” “to give the Poles two millions in money”, the first record in MDA2.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Already in Miron Costin the word counts money, and Șăineanu gives the absolute use for a million lei: are trei milioane “he has three millions”.^[4][12] In the plural it can stand for a very large, indefinite number.^[2] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 glosses milionu with Latin millio, Hungarian milliom and German Million.^[13]

A familiar phrase, de milioane “first-rate, extraordinary”, is recorded in the press from 1978.^[14][3]

Timeline

• 1645 – first record, in a Romanian translation of Herodotus.^[6][4]
• c. 1675 – milioane in Miron Costin's chronicle.^[2][4]
• 1801 – milion in Klein's dictionary.^[7]
• 1825 – milionu in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[13]
• 1978 – the phrase de milioane “extraordinary” in the press.^[14]

Meanings

Numeral

1. A million: a thousand times a thousand.^[3][1]
2. (in the plural) A very large, indefinite number.^[2]
3. A sum of a million units of money.^[2][12]

Word family

• milionar

Related words

• Aromanian miliune

Usage notes

De milioane (familiar) means “extraordinary, first-rate”: o idee de milioane.^[3][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 13
3. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 654
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. milion
5. ^ 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. milion
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. milion
7. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 215
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
11. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 213
12. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 399
13. ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 392
14. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. milion