particulă

Forms

particulă f (plural particule)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French particule and directly borrowed from Latin particula (“a small part”), the double source that DEX, DLR and the neologism dictionaries give.^[2][3][4][1] MDA2 names the same two sources, while Tiktin and Scriban give only the Latin word.^[5][6][7] The Latin noun is a diminutive of pars (“part”).^[7][8][9] The French word was itself borrowed from Latin in 1478, first for a tiny amount of matter.^[9]

Graur lists the word among the Romanian descendants of the same Latin family, beside the inherited parte and the learned particular.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and MDA2 date the first record to 1785, in Gheorghe Șincai's arithmetic textbook printed at Blaj.^[6][5] There it is a term of grammar: Șincai explains that to count past ten one puts the smaller numbers first and adds „particula «spre»” “the particle spre”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word entered Romanian as a grammatical term, for an affix or a short invariable word such as a preposition or conjunction; the DLR quotes it in grammars from the late 18th century on.^[3][5] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 has both this sense and “a small part”.^[11] Șăineanu's dictionary adds a third, the preposition before the surname of a noble family, like French de.^[12]

The physical sense, a very small piece of matter, came to the fore with modern science: DLRLC and DEX define particulă elementară, an elementary particle such as the electron or proton.^[13][2] Recent press Romanian also has particula lui Dumnezeu, the “God particle”, for the Higgs boson.^[14]

Timeline

• 1785 – first record, as a grammatical term in Șincai's arithmetic textbook.^[6][5][3]
• 1848 – listed in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms, glossed by părticică.^[15]
• 1870 – Costinescu gives both “a small part” and the grammatical sense.^[11]
• 1929 – Șăineanu records the nobiliary particle before a family name.^[12]
• 1955–1957 – DLRLC defines particulă elementară in physics.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A very small piece of a substance or of matter; a particle.^[2][1] Particulă elementară: an elementary particle, a constituent of matter that cannot be broken into simpler units;^[2] particulă alfa, particulă beta: alpha and beta particles.^[2]
2. (linguistics) An affix or other invariable element attached to a word; also a general term for short words, mostly uninflected parts of speech.^[2][5]
3. A word that accompanies a family name or a title to show rank, such as French de or German von.^[2][14]

Related words

• parte
• părticică
• particular
• Latin pars

Usage notes

MDA2 records an old neuter variant particul, plural particuluri.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 778
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. particulă
4. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. particulă
5. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 276
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. particulă
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 938
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 70
11. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 254
12. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 466
13. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 330
14. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. particulă
15. ^ 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