poliție

Forms

poliție f (plural poliții)^[1] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written полицие.^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Russian полиция (policija), according to DEX; the other dictionaries name several sources together, MDA2 and the DLR give Latin polītīa, German Polizei, Russian and French police, Marcu German, French and Russian, Wiktionary French, Italian polizia and Russian.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Tiktin takes it from New Latin and compares the Russian and Polish words.^[6]

The Russian word came through Polish policja from the German and Italian words, and these go back to the Latin word, from Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeía, “government, administration”), a derivative of πόλις (pólis, “city”).^[7][8] In Latin the word meant the organisation of the state; the sense “force that keeps public order” is a calque of the French sense, which spread through Europe after the French Revolution.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Pravila of 1788, which puts the guilty under the watch of the police after they have served their sentence: supt luarea de samă a poliției.^[4][3][6]

Semantic evolution

In the first half of the 19th century the word named the police authority of the towns: a text of 1829 speaks of the director of police receiving a prince at the town gate.^[4] It was soon used of the building as well, and collectively of the policemen.^[2][10] Specialised branches got their own names: poliție judiciară, poliție sanitară and poliție rurală.^[3] After 2000 the press introduced poliție comunitară, poliție de proximitate and poliție locală, on the model of French, Italian and Spanish terms.^[11]

Timeline

• 1788 – poliției in the Pravila, the first record.^[3][6][4]
• 1829 – directorul de poliție “the director of police” in a text of that year.^[4]
• 1848 – șeful poliției din Iași “the chief of police of Iași” in a document of that year.^[4]
• 2002 – poliție comunitară “community police” in the press.^[11]
• 2005 – poliție de proximitate “neighbourhood police”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. police: the state body charged with keeping public order and suppressing crime; its work of control and supervision; the phrase A face poliție “to keep order strictly and harshly”.^[2][12][1]
2. A police station, the building where the police are housed.^[2][3]
3. (collective) The policemen of a station; the representatives of the police.^[2][3]

Related words

• polițist
• polițai
• French police
• Russian полиция (policija)

Usage notes

The form poliția occurs once in the Bucharest Bible of 1688, a century before the dictionaries' first record of the word.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 846
3. ^ 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, 456
4. ^ 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. poliție
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. poliție
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. poliție
7. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 5, 501
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. police
9. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. polizia
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1011
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. poliție
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. poliție
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Acts 22:28