monedă

Forms

monedă f (plural monede)^[1] A variant monetă occurs in the 19th century: „Considerațiunile care făceau necesar crearea unei monete speciale” “the considerations that made a special currency necessary” (1866).^[2][3] Besides the plural monede there is monezi.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek μονέδα (monéda): DEX, DN, MDN and Gabinschi take it from Modern Greek, while MDA2 names Greek, Italian moneta and Latin monēta together, and Tiktin Greek and Italian.^{[4][6][7][8][9][5]} The Greek word is old: Kriaras records it in medieval texts and derives it from Venetian monéda.^[10][1] The Venetian form continues the Latin word, which meant “mint; coin” and was not inherited by Romanian.^[8][11]

The Latin word was first an epithet of Juno, “Monēta”, in whose temple the Roman mint stood.^[12][13] Cicero and the Suda derived the name from moneō (“to remind, warn”);^[1] Wiktionary notes other explanations.^[1] The variant monetă is from Italian or Latin.^[1][6] Its Romance cognates include French monnaie, Spanish moneda and Portuguese moeda.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from about 1700.^[5] MDA2 starts with G. Șincai's Îndreptare cătră arithmetică of 1785, where florins, kreuzers and pennies are counted as bani sau monete “money or coins”.^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

The word has meant money, especially coins, with legal currency in a state, and generally a small coin, small change.^[4][9] Early 19th-century documents speak of the value of the currency (1811) and of monedă curgătoare “current coin” (1813).^[2] Phrases followed: a bate monedă “to mint coins”, figuratively “to harp on something, to make capital out of it”, and a plăti cu aceeași monedă “to pay back in kind”.^[4][9] Slang has many synonyms for it.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1700 – first record.^[5]
• 1785 – monete in Șincai's Îndreptare cătră arithmetică.^[9][2]
• 1813 – monedă curgătoare “current coin” in a document.^[2]
• 1866 – monetă “currency” in the Uricariul collection.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A coin or piece of money (rarely paper) that is or was legal tender in a state; currency.^[4][9][1]
2. Generally, a small metal coin; small change, mărunțiș.^[4][9]

Related words

• ban
• bancnotă
• monetar
• Latin monēta

Usage notes

Set phrases: a bate monedă “to mint money”;^[4][9] a bate monedă din ceva “to harp on something, to exploit it”;^[4][9] a plăti cuiva cu aceeași monedă “to give someone a taste of his own medicine”;^[4][9] asta e moneda plătită, said of a misfortune that comes as punishment for bad deeds.^[4][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. monedă
3. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 122
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 669
5. ^ 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. monedă
6. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. monedă
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. monedă
8. ^ a b Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 131
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 48
10. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5659
12. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. monedă