parazit

Forms

parazit m (plural paraziți, feminine equivalent parazită)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin parasītus (“guest; parasite”), with German Parasit and French parasite as further sources: DEX, MDA2, the DLR and DILF give all three sources.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Tiktin takes it from the Latin word as a learned loan, partly through other languages.^[6] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek παράσιτος (parásitos, “one who eats at another's table”), made up of παρά (pará, “beside”) and σῖτος (sîtos, “grain, food”).^[7][8][9] In Latin it meant a guest and then a man who made a profession of living on the hospitality of others, a stock figure of comedy.^[10][9] The German word is recorded from the 15th century and the French one from 1500; the biological sense appeared in the 19th century.^[11][8][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Bobb's Romanian–Latin–Hungarian dictionary of 1822–1823.^[3][6] The DLR lists it under the biological sense.^[4] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 gives the older sense: a man whose trade is always to eat at another's table, a toady.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Two senses came in together: the ancient table guest who had to amuse his rich host, and the animal or plant that lives on another organism.^[9][3] A journal of 1862 already writes of a parasitic fungus on grain.^[4] The figurative sense, a person who lives on the work of others, grew from both;^[9][13][2] Scriban and Șăineanu also record the adjective in the sense “superfluous”, as in ornaments or words that serve no purpose.^[9][13][2] In the 20th century the plural paraziți came to mean the crackling noise in radio and telephone lines caused by atmospheric discharges or nearby electrical apparatus.^[14][2]

Most of the family came separately from French: parazitism (1852), parazitar (1924), parazita (1959) and parazitologie (1957).^[3] Deparazita “to rid of parasites” was formed in Romanian and is recorded from 1968.^[15]

Timeline

• 1822–1823 – Bobb's dictionary, the first record.^[3][6]
• 1848 – Negulici: one who always eats at another's table.^[12]
• 1852 – parazitism, in a translated household medical manual.^[3]
• 1862 – a parasitic fungus of grain, in the journal Isis.^[4]
• 1924 – parazitar in the prose of D. Anghel.^[3]
• 1968 – deparazita in the second edition of Marcu & Maneca's dictionary.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A parasite: an animal or plant that lives and feeds on another organism, often causing it disease or death.^[2][3]
2. (figurative) A person who lives on the work of others and produces nothing; a sponger.^[2][14]
3. (antiquity) A guest invited to a rich man's table to entertain him.^[3][16]
4. (plural) Electromagnetic interference in radio and telecommunications, caused by atmospheric discharges or by other electrical apparatus.^[2][3]

Adjective

1. Living and feeding on another organism: viermi paraziți.^[2][3]
2. (figurative) Living on the work of others.^[2]
3. (figurative) Serving no useful purpose; superfluous: un cuvânt parazit.^[2][9]

Word family

• deparazita

Related words

• parazitar
• parazitism
• parazita
• parazitologie

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 774
3. ^ 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, 268
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. parazit
5. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria
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. parazit
7. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d e f Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 934
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 683
12. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București
13. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 462
14. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 322
15. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 645
16. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România