pericol

Forms

pericol n (plural pericole)^[1] The 18th- and early 19th-century texts also have pericolon, pericul, periclu and pericula, with an old masculine plural pericoli.^[2][3][4] The oldest record has the Greek-shaped form: „Nu le se va întîmpla vreun pericolon” “no danger will befall them” (before 1790).^[4][5] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 enters it as a masculine noun in Cyrillic, пericoл, glossed with the native primejdie.^[6]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin perīculum (“trial; danger”), with Italian pericolo and Modern Greek περίκολον (períkolon) as further sources in MDA2, Tiktin and the Academy dictionary.^[2][3][4] DEX gives only Latin and Italian, Wiktionary Italian and Latin, and Ciorănescu Italian alone.^[7][1][8] The earliest form, ⟨pericolon⟩, came through Greek: Gáldi counts it among the Greek loans of the Phanariote period and traces the Greek word to Latin, comparing a Cretan form περικολάρει (perikolárei, “there is danger”).^[5] The modern form ⟨pericol⟩ follows Italian and Latin.^[4][9]

The Latin word is formed from the verb seen in experior (“to try”) with the instrumental suffix -culum.^[10] It first meant “trial, test” and then “danger”.^[11][10] Its Romance descendants also include French péril, Spanish peligro and Portuguese perigo.^[12][13] Aromanian has pericul, which Pascu takes from Italian.^[14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is pericolon “danger” in a text of before 1790.^[2][3][4] Gáldi's records of the form go back to the 1780s.^[5] Early in the 19th century the Latin-shaped pericul appears in the phrase „în pericul de moarte” “in danger of death”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its sense of a situation that threatens someone's life or safety, a near-synonym of the older primejdie.^[7][2] Forms with Greek, Latin and Italian shapes competed through the first half of the 19th century, in Heliade, Asachi and the Transylvanian writers, before pericol won.^[4] A rarer sense is “risk”.^[7][2] The law has the term pericol social for the harm an act does to the state and its legal order.^[7]

Timeline

• before 1790 – pericolon “danger”, the first record.^[2][4][5]
• before 1814 – pericolon again, in a Phanariote-era text.^[4]
• 1829 – pericol in the newspaper Albina românească.^[4]
• 1848 – entered in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[6]
• 1870 – Cihac sets it beside the Romance words from Latin periculum.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. danger, peril: a situation or event that threatens someone's or something's existence or integrity.^[7][2][1]
2. pericol social (law): the harmful character of an act or omission that endangers the state, a person and their rights, or the legal order.^[7]
3. (rare) risk.^[7][2][1]

Related words

• periculos
• Aromanian pericul
• Latin perīculum

Usage notes

Cu pericolul vieții means “at the risk of one's life”.^[16] The adjective periculos was taken from pericoloso.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 346
3. ^ 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. pericol
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. pericol
5. ^ a b c d Gáldi, Ladislas (1939), Les mots d'origine néo-grecque en roumain à l'époque des Phanariotes, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Egyetemi Nyomda, p. 224
6. ^ 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, p. s.v. pericol
7. ^ 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. 803
8. ^ a b 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. pericol
9. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. pericol
10. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 74
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ a b Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 201
14. ^ 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
15. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 815
16. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 386