poziție

Forms

poziție f (plural poziții)^[1] An older variant is pozițiune, in Asachi: „Toate puterile Europei prețuiau... pozițiunea țărei” “all the powers of Europe valued the country's position”.^[2][3] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 spells it posiție in the transitional alphabet.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin positio (“a placing”), with French position and German Position as further models: MDA2 and the DLR name the three together.^[3][2] Wiktionary and the DN put French first,^[1][5] and Tiktin takes it from the New Latin word, partly through other languages.^[6] The Latin noun is formed on the supine of pōnō (“to put, to place”) with -tiō.^[1] The German word was borrowed from Latin in the 16th century.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1814.^[6] MDA2 and the DLR quote the Albina românească of 1829 on the geographical position of Moldavia, which had made it a stage of unrest and of hard fighting since ancient times.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is the place or the way something is set in space; 19th-century geography, geometry and drawing books used it in this sense, and it also came to mean a landscape seen from a place.^[2][8] Specialised senses followed: the place of a note on the stave, the place of a sound in a word, an entry in an account, and the ground held by troops at the front, with the phrases a lua poziție “to take up a position; to take a stand” and a rămâne pe poziție “to stick to one's views”.^[8][3] From the bodily posture it came to mean an attitude, and a social standing or rank.^[8][5] Colloquially, a fi în poziție meant to be pregnant.^[6] The compound poziție-cheie “key position” is recorded from 1962, after French position-clé.^[9]

Timeline

• 1814 – the first record.^[6]
• 1829 – the geographical position of Moldavia, in the Albina românească.^[2][3]
• 1848 – posiție “situation, state, point” in Negulici's dictionary.^[4]
• 1962 – poziție-cheie “key position”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The place someone or something occupies in relation to others; the way something is placed in space; by extension, a landscape.^[8][3]
2. In music, the place of a note or a clef on the stave, or of the fingers on the strings; in linguistics, the place of a sound in a word; in accounting, an entry in an account.^[8][3]
3. A point of view; a relation between two things.^[8]
4. Ground held by troops at the front or by warships at sea: a lua poziție “to take up a position; to state one's view firmly”, a rămâne pe poziție “to hold one's ground”.^[8][3]
5. A posture of the body, an attitude; specifically, standing still to attention.^[8]
6. A situation; a social rank or standing: o poziție de director “a post of director”.^[8][10]

Related words

• Latin positio

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. poziție
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 495
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. poziție
5. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. poziție
6. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. poziție
7. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 716
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 858
9. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. poziție
10. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. poziție