Etymology and origin of the Romanian word port
port1 bearing, costume
- Confidence
- Established
- Formation
- Back-formation
- First attested
- 1632 Eustratie's Pravila
- Ultimate origin
- Latin portō
Etymology tree of port1
From the same root · port1
Forms
port n (plural porturi)[1]
Etymology
The word for bearing and dress is a back-formation from Romanian purta (“to carry, to wear”).[2][3][4][5] Pușcariu compares the nouns Italian porto and French port, formed in the same way on the verbs for “to carry”, and Cihac adds Spanish porte.[6][7] The verb itself goes back to Latin portō (“to carry”).[6][5] Scriban sees the senses “carrying” and “postage” as modelled on French.[8]
Earliest recorded meaning
Tiktin's first record is in the Pravila of Eustratie of 1632;[3][4] MDA2 dates the word to Varlaam's Cazania of 1643, in the sense “carrying, wearing”.[3][4]
Semantic evolution
From the act of wearing the word came to mean clothing, above all the dress typical of a people, a region or an age.[4][2] Nicolae Costin writes that peoples take their dress from one another over time: „Iau neam de la neam porturile cu vremi”.[3] The Lexicon of Buda of 1825 glosses it as Latin habitus, vestitus and German Tracht.[9] The sense “bearing, conduct” lives in the proverb „Ori vorbește cum ți-e portul, ori te poartă cum ți-e vorba” “either speak as you behave, or behave as you speak”, said to someone whose words differ from his thoughts.[2][3] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 adds the fee paid for a letter or parcel.[10] MDA2 records obsolete senses “appearance” and “kind”, and in forestry the habit of a stand of trees.[4]
Timeline
- 1632 – the first record, in Eustratie's Pravila.[3]
- 1643 – in Varlaam's Cazania.[4]
- 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda glosses it “garment, dress”.[9]
- 1870 – Costinescu records the senses “postage” and “bearing, manner”.[10]
Meanings
Noun
port2 harbour
Etymology tree of port2
From the same root · port2
Forms
port n (plural porturi)[1]
Etymology
The word for a harbour is borrowed from French port;[12][2][13] Ciorănescu, DEX 2009 and the DILF also name Italian porto.[12][2][13] MDA2 also names Modern Greek πόρτο (pórto), and Tiktin gives Italian, perhaps through another language.[4][14] Both Romance words go back to Latin portus (“harbour”), which Wiktionary and Scriban also give as a direct source.[1][8][5]
Earliest recorded meaning
The first record is in volume IV of the Călătorie, a translation of the abbé Delaporte's account of the world, the earlier volumes of which survive in a manuscript of 1785.[14][4] The rare variant porto also occurs.[4]
Semantic evolution
Besides the harbour itself, the word names a town with a harbour.[2][4] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 records porto-franc, a free port.[10] Figuratively it is a haven: a ajunge în port “to reach safety”, and to be shipwrecked in port is to fail just before success.[8] Ciorănescu's derivatives are portuar and the borrowed port-franc and portulan.[12]
Timeline
- 1788 – the first record, in the Călătorie.[14]
- 1870 – Costinescu records portŭ “harbour” and porto-franc.[10]
- 1939 – Scriban records the figurative “haven”.[8]
Meanings
Noun
- A harbour: a place on the shore of a navigable water, equipped for ships to berth, load, unload and be repaired.[2][4]
- A port town.[2][4]
Word family
- portuar
- portulan
Related words
Usage notes
DEX's first port is the combining form port- “bearer of, holder of”, from French porte-, as in portdrapel “standard-bearer” and portțigaret “cigarette holder”;[2][11] DEX's second and third are the two words above.[2][11] In computing port is a socket of a computer for peripherals: port serial, portul USB.[15]
References
- ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 851
- ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. port 1
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 474
- ^ a b c Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 143
- ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 119
- ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 213
- ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1019
- ^ a b Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 527
- ^ a b c d Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 322
- ^ 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, 506
- ^ a b c 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. port
- ^ a b 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
- ^ 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. port 2
- ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. port
Related etymologies
Cite this entry
“Port.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/port. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.
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