populație

Forms

populație f (plural populații)^[1] The old variants popolație and populațiune are recorded;^[2][3] Caragiale still wrote populațiune.^[2][3] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 prints it in the transitional alphabet as ПOПꙊΛAЦIE, “the inhabitants of a nation”.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French population, one of the French neologisms of the 19th century.^{[2][5][6][7][8]} Wiktionary also names Late Latin populātiō as a source.^[1] The French word was borrowed in 1335, in Oresme, from the Late Latin noun meaning “the inhabitants of a place”, a 5th-century derivative of Latin populus (“people”), distinct from the classical noun for “devastation”, which belongs to populor (“to lay waste”).^[9] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *poplos (“army”), of uncertain further origin.^[1][10] The Romanian word inherited from it is popor.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, of 1817, is a text printed in the Uricariul, which says that as the population grew the rulers began to draw on two books of law.^[7][6][2] Golescu used it of the town of Mantua, a large town with few inhabitants.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The main sense has been the whole body of inhabitants of a country, a region or a town from the first record on; it competed with older words for the same idea, such as obște, poporime, norod and poporație.^[2][7][5] Rarely it meant a crowd, a people or a tribe.^[2][7] In biology it names the individuals of one species of plant or animal living in the same area, and astronomy speaks of populații de stele “star populations”, groups of stars by age, position and chemical make-up.^[5][12] In statistics it is the set of individuals under study.^[8]

Timeline

• 1817 – a text printed in the Uricariul, the first record.^[2][6]
• 1848 – listed by Negulici among the neologisms.^[4]
• 20th century – the biological sense and populație de stele in the dictionaries.^[5][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The whole body of inhabitants of a country, a region, a town etc.; poporație.^[5][2]
2. (biology) A group of individuals of the same species of plant or animal living in the same geographical area.^[5][8]
3. (statistics) The set of individuals under study.^[8]
4. In populație de stele: a group of stars classed by age, position and chemical composition.^[5]
5. (rare) A crowd; a people or a tribe.^[2]

Related words

• popor
• popula
• popular
• French population

Usage notes

Populație activă is the part of the population in work.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 470
3. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 503
4. ^ 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. populație
5. ^ 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. 850
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. populație
7. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. populație
8. ^ a b c d e Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. populație
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. population
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. populație