parolă

Forms

parolă f (plural parole)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French parole (“word, promise”), Italian parola and German Parole: the dictionaries name several sources at once.^[2][1][3] The DLR and MDA2 add Russian пароль (parolʹ) and a Latin parola.^[4][5] Ciorănescu gives the Italian and French words and compares Bulgarian парола (parola) and Turkish, in which the word meant “pledge”.^[6] The Romance words go back to Late Latin parabola (“comparison; speech”), from Ancient Greek παραβολή (parabolḗ);^[1] in Christian Latin the word came to mean “speech, word” and replaced verbum in the Romance languages other than Romanian.^[7][8] parabolă and palavră are doublets of it.^[1]

Aromanian parolă is recorded too;^[9] Pascu took it from the Turkish word, itself Italian.^[9] The BER explains the Bulgarian word in the same way, as an Italian word that reached Bulgarian through Turkish.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first sense was “promise, pledge, word of honour”.^[4][6] Tiktin's first record is Dimitrie Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică of 1705, and Ciorănescu dates this sense to the beginning of the 18th century.^[11][6] MDA2 gives as its first record a passage of Miron Costin quoted by Gîdei, „amândoi puind parolă” “both giving their word”.^[5][4] Ion Neculce writes that the German emperor handed over the tsar's son „pre parolă” “on his word”.^[11][4]

Semantic evolution

Through the 18th and 19th centuries the word meant a solemn promise, in phrases such as a da parola “to give one's word”, a-și ține parola “to keep one's word” and de parolă “who keeps his word”, and later parolă de onoare “word of honour”.^[4][5] Older texts also used it for “word, saying” and for a dance and its tune.^[2][5] The military sense, a secret word by which soldiers on a mission recognise one another, appears in Budai-Deleanu's lexicon; it spread to the recognition words of conspirators and to “slogan”.^[4][2] In computing the word now means a password that opens a file or a database.^[2] The older sense of a promise is rare today.^[2][4] A Gallicism parol was used as an interjection, “honestly!”, and in card games.^[5][4]

Timeline

• 1705 – parolă “pledge” in Cantemir's Istoria ieroglifică.^[11][4]
• early 18th century – a da parola “to give one's word” in a chronicle.^[4]
• 1929 – Șăineanu gives both “promise” and “slogan”.^[12]
• 1939 – Scriban records the military watchword sense.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A secret watchword or formula used by soldiers on a mission to identify themselves to others who know it;^[2][5] a da parola “to give the password”.^[2][5]
2. A secret word of recognition used by the members of a conspiratorial group.^[2][3]
3. (computing) a password that gives access to a file or a database.^[2][1]
4. (rare) a promise, pledge; word of honour: Și-a dat parola că va veni. “He gave his word that he would come.”^[2][5]
5. (obsolete) a word, a saying.^[2][1]
6. (obsolete) the name of a folk dance and of its tune.^[2][5]

Word family

• parolist

Usage notes

Wiktionary also records a dated sense “chat” for the noun.^[1] Parolist is “a man of his word”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 777
3. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. parolă
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. parolă
5. ^ 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, 273
6. ^ a b c d 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. parolă
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6222
9. ^ a b 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, 215
10. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 5, 73
11. ^ 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. parólă
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 465
13. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 937