plajă

Forms

plajă f (plural plaje)^[1] The first record keeps the French spelling plage: Heliade's Don Juan of 1847 speaks of a boy found lying half dead „asupra plagei” “on the beach”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French plage (“beach”), a loan of the 19th century.^{[3][4][2][5][1]} The French word is from Italian piaggia (“flat open shore”), recorded in French from 1298, and the Italian word goes back to Ancient Greek πλάγια (plágia, “sides, flanks”), the neuter plural of πλάγιος (plágios, “oblique”).^[6] Wiktionary has the French word from Middle French, from Medieval Latin plagia, partly after the Italian word.^[1] Gabinschi traces the same chain through Latin and the Greek plural taken as a feminine singular.^[7] Scriban took the Italian word from a popular Latin form of plaga (“region, expanse”).^[8]

Wiktionary calls it a doublet of plai, and Gabinschi puts the doublets in one nest.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Ion Heliade Rădulescu's 1847 translation of Byron's Don Juan, in the French spelling plage, for the sandy shore of the sea.^[3][2][4] Negulici's dictionary of neologisms listed it the next year.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a low sandy seashore, and was soon used for any sandy place by a water where people sunbathe.^[2][3] The phrase a face plajă “to sunbathe” is in the DLRLC of the 1950s.^[9][5]

Technical senses are each of the two lit fields of a comparison photometer, and a stretch of free deck at the bow and stern of a ship.^[5][10] In the 1990s the press used plajă for a range between two values, as in plaje valorice and plajă salarială “salary band”.^[11][3]

Timeline

• 1847 – plage in Heliade's translation of Don Juan, the first record.^[3][4]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[2]
• 1929 – Șăineanu defines it as the edge of the sea with a shallow bottom.^[12]
• 1955–1957 – a face plajă “to sunbathe” in the DLRLC.^[9]
• 1993 – plaje valorice “ranges of values” for salary scales in the press.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A beach: a strip of fine sand at the foot of a cliff or on the gentle seaward slope of a coastal bar; by extension, any place by a water where people sunbathe;^[5][3] a face plajă “to sunbathe”.^[5][3]
2. (figurative, physics) Either of the two lit fields of a comparison photometer, whose brightness is brought to equality.^[5][3]
3. A free stretch of deck at the bow and stern of a ship.^[10]
4. A range or interval between two values or possibilities: o plajă salarială largă “a wide salary band”.^[11][10]

Related words

• plai
• French plage

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. plajă
3. ^ 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, 403
4. ^ 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. plajă
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 826
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 141
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 991
9. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 448
10. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. plajă
11. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. plajă
12. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 485