Etymology and origin of the Romanian word op
op1 need
Forms
op n (plural opuri)[1]
Etymology
The word for “need” is inherited from Latin opus (“work; need”), used above all in opus est (“it is needed”).[2][3][4][5][1] Pușcariu and Candrea and Densusianu give the same etymon.[2] Cihac gave the same etymon.[6] The REW records Aromanian op in the phrase op este (“it is needed”).[7]
Its Romance cognates are Italian uopo, Sardinian obus, Occitan ops and Catalan ops; Old French estuet (“it is necessary”) continues est opus.[2][7] The old forms opt (“it is necessary”), from the same Latin phrase, and obsă, from op să, belong here too.[2]
Earliest recorded meaning
The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500–1520) has it in a fi op “to be of use”.[3][8][4] The Psaltirea Scheiană renders Slavonic nepotrebni byšę “they became useless” as nu fură opu.[5][9]
Semantic evolution
The word lived in set phrases: a fi op “to be of use; to be needed”, a fi (spre) op să “to have to”, a avea op “to need”.[3][4] Later translations replaced it: where the Codicele Voronețean has opu iaste, the New Testament of 1648 has trebuiaște and the 1688 Bible cuvine-se.[4] Șincai still wrote are op “needs”.[5] DLR quotes a 19th-century note that people in Maramureș said nu am op where other Romanians said n-am lipsă “I don't need it”.[4]
Timeline
- c. 1500–1520 – a fi op in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.[3][8]
- c. 1563–1583 – opu iaste in the Codicele Voronețean.[4][5]
- c. 1573–1578 – nu fură opu in the Psaltirea Scheiană.[9]
- 1648 – a New Testament has trebuiaște where older texts had opu iaste.[4]
Meanings
Noun
op2 written work
Forms
op n (plural opuri)[1]
Etymology
The word for a written work is borrowed from Latin opus (“work”), a learned loan of the 19th century.[2][10][11][1] It comes from the same Latin word as the inherited word for “need”, of which it is a doublet.[2][1]
Earliest recorded meaning
Tiktin dates the first record to 1791.[5] MDA2's first record is Ion Ionescu's book on the agriculture of Mehedinți (1868), which speaks of “our work”, opul nostru.[3][4]
Semantic evolution
It is used of a book or a literary or scholarly work;[4] DLR also quotes un op arhitectonic “an architectural work” from 1859.[4] DEX 1998 labels it bookish;[12][10] DEX 2009 labels it old-fashioned and colloquial.[12][10]
Timeline
- 1791 – first record.[5]
- 1859 – un op arhitectonic “an architectural work”.[4]
- 1868 – opul nostru “our work” in Ion Ionescu.[3][4]
Meanings
Noun
Related words
- operă
- opus
Usage notes
MDA2 also lists the learned final element -op “eye; sight”, from French -ope, and op as a variant of the interjection hop.[3][11]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f 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. op
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 213
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. op
- ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. op
- ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 186
- ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6079
- ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 13:4
- ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 52:4
- ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 744
- ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. op
- ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 721
Related etymologies
Cite this entry
“Op.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/op. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.
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