notă

Forms

notă f (plural note)^[1] MDA2 records a dated regional variant noată.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nota (“mark, sign”) together with French note and Italian nota, an etymology with several sources, as MDA2, DLR and Tiktin give it.^[2][3][4] Ciorănescu and Wiktionary name French alone, Scriban Latin alone.^[5][1][6] Scriban derives the Latin word from nōscō (“to get to know”).^[6]

In the sense “song, tune” the word is a separate borrowing, borrowed from Hungarian nóta, itself of Medieval Latin origin.^[7] The musical note of Klein and the Lexicon de la Buda may come from Latin or from German Note, and “note muzicale” was later modelled on French “notes musicales”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1703.^[4] MDA2 starts from a document of 1793 published in the Uricariul.^[2] Klein's dictionary (1801) and the Lexicon de la Buda (1825) record the musical note; the Lexicon also has “note, remark”.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The first senses are a written remark or comment and a musical sign.^[8][9] By 1870 Costinescu gives an annotation on a passage, a summary and the note sent between diplomats.^[10] DLR quotes notes in a periodical of 1834, and the phrase a lua notă “to take note”, a calque of French prendre note, from 1900.^[3]

Later senses include a bill, a school mark and a characteristic touch, as in o notă de ironie;^[11][12] a fi în notă means “to fit the situation”.^[11][12] It also named the banknotes issued in Austria-Hungary during the Napoleonic wars.^[2]

Timeline

• 1703 – the first record according to Tiktin.^[4]
• 1793 – a document in the Uricariul, MDA2's first record.^[2]
• 1801 – the musical note in Klein's dictionary.^[7]
• 1825 – “remark” and “musical note” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[8]
• 1834 – newspaper notes.^[3]
• 1870 – the diplomatic note in Costinescu.^[10]
• 1900 – a lua notă “to take note”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A written note or remark;^[11] a lua notă de ceva “to take note of something”; in the plural, notes taken at a lecture or travel notes.^[11]
2. An annotation at the foot of a page or the end of a book.^[11]
3. A diplomatic note from one government to another; a short official communication.^[11]
4. A written bill of what one must pay: Ne aduceți nota, vă rog.^[11][2]
5. A grade given to a pupil or student: A luat nota zece la istorie.^[11][2]
6. (music) A sign showing the pitch and length of a sound, and the sound itself.^[11]
7. (figurative) A characteristic touch or nuance;^[11][12] a fi în notă “to be in keeping”.^[11][12]

Related words

• notiță

Usage notes

In Bistrița-Năsăud notă also meant “song”, from Hungarian.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b 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, 169
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. notă
4. ^ 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. notă
5. ^ 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. notă
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 877
7. ^ a b c d e Tamás, Lajos (1966), Etymologisch-historisches Wörterbuch der ungarischen Elemente im Rumänischen, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 570
8. ^ a b c 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. 450
9. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 255
10. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 181
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 722
12. ^ a b c d Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual