pasaj

Forms

pasaj n (plural pasaje)^[1] A rarer variant is pasagiu, used by Hasdeu: „Vom începe prin a traduce întregul pasagiu” “we shall begin by translating the whole passage”.^[2][3] Older plurals include pasajuri (1838), pasage and pasagii.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French passage, with Italian passaggio and German Passage as further sources in DEX 2009, MDA2 and the DLR.^[3][4][2] Wiktionary and NODEX name only French.^[5][1] The rare variant pasagiu reflects the Italian form.^[3] The French noun is formed from passer (“to pass”) with the suffix -age.^[1] The Italian noun is itself borrowed from French, and the German one too.^[6][1] The verb continues Vulgar Latin *passō, formed on Latin passus (“step”), which comes from pandō (“to spread out”).^[7][8][9]

Graur lists it with pas, pasager and pașaport among the Romanian words of this Latin family.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to 1838, and the DLR quotes it: someone should be able to sing câteva pasajuri din opere “a few passages from operas”.^[4][2] The first sense was thus a passage of a written or musical work.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “passage of a text” spread in the 19th century, with Heliade, Hasdeu, Maiorescu and Eminescu among the DLR's quotations, often in the forms pasagiu and pasage.^[2] A quotation of 1848 has pasagiu for the way past the cafés, blocked by chairs and tables, and this sense of a place of passage led to the current one, a passageway between or through buildings at street level.^[2] Șăineanu in 1929 describes it as a covered gallery lined with shops in the big cities and names Bucharest's Pasajul român.^[10] Traffic gave the senses “pedestrian crossing” and “junction of roads or of a road and a railway”, as in pasaj de nivel “level crossing”.^[3][4]

MDA2 also records old abstract senses, “movement”, “passing” and “succession”, now obsolete.^[4] Technical senses followed French: the seasonal migration of birds, with de pasaj “of passage”, and in metallurgy a pass of metal between the rolls of a mill.^[3][11]

Timeline

• 1838 – pasajuri “passages from operas”, the first record.^[4][2]
• 1848 – pasagiu “way past” the cafés, the sense of a place of passage.^[2]
• 1893–1895 – Damé lists pasaj as a neologism.^[12]
• 1929 – a covered shopping gallery, with Pasajul român as the example.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A passageway between two rows of buildings or through a building at street level, for pedestrians or sometimes vehicles; by extension, any way through.^[3][4]
2. A marked pedestrian crossing.^[3]
3. A crossing of roads, or of a road and a railway, at different levels: pasaj de nivel, pasaj denivelat.^[3][4]
4. A passage from a written text: A citit cu voce tare un pasaj din roman.^[3][2]
5. (music) A run of short, quick notes forming the transition between the themes of a piece.^[3][4]
6. The seasonal migration of birds;^[3] de pasaj “passing through a country during migration”; a migrating flock.^[3]
7. (metallurgy) A pass of metal or fibres between the rollers of a mill.^[3]

Related words

• pas
• pasager
• pașaport
• French passage

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. pasaj
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 779
4. ^ 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, 277
5. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. pasaj
6. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. passaggio
7. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
8. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 687
9. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 66
10. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 467
11. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. pasaj
12. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. 2, s.v. pasaj