porno

Forms

porno m or f or n (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

The adjective is borrowed from French porno, also borrowed from English porno, a word of the 1970s.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary gives English alone.^[1] Dimitrescu treats it as a shortening of pornografic, comparing the French word and Italian porno.^[5] The noun “porn” is a clipping from Romanian pornografie.^[1]

The first part of these words, porno- “obscene; prostitution”, came into Romanian through French, Italian, English and German from Ancient Greek πόρνη (pórnē, “prostitute”).^[6][7] The Greek word is related to πέρνημι (pérnēmi, “to sell”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dimitrescu quotes porno-magazinele “porn shops” of Paris from a newspaper of 1970, and cites the word from a neologism dictionary of the same year.^[5] MDA2's first record is DEX of 1975, with the sense “pornographic”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word is invariable: literatură porno, filme porno.^[2][8] After 1989 it became frequent in the press, in vedetă porno “porn star”, industria porno and compounds such as porno-hard.^[5] Slang dictionaries record it as a plain synonym of pornografic.^[9] Used as a noun it means “porn”.^[1]

Timeline

• 1970 – porno in a dictionary of neologisms, and porno-magazin “porn shop” in a newspaper.^[5]
• 1975 – the adjective in DEX, its first dictionary record per MDA2.^[3]
• 1991 – “a porno newspaper” in the weekly 22.^[5]
• 1993 – porno-hard.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (invariable) pornographic: o revistă porno.^[2][3]

Noun

1. (colloquial) porn, pornography.^[1]

Related words

• pornografie
• pornografic

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 851
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 473
4. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. 2
5. ^ a b c d e f Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. pórno
6. ^ Andrei, Nicolae (1987), Dicționar etimologic de termeni științifici: elemente de compunere greco-latine, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. s.v. porno
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. porno
8. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. porno
9. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. porno