profesor

Forms

profesor m (plural profesori, feminine equivalent profesoară)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin professor (“public teacher”), together with French professeur and German Professor.^[2][3][1] The DLR and MDA2 name all three,^[2][3] as does Wiktionary;^[1] DEX 2009 gives French and German,^[4] and Tiktin learned Latin, partly through other languages.^[5] Marcu and Maneca name French and Italian professore.^[6]

The two stresses have been explained apart: Scriban and Gabinschi take ⟨profésor⟩ from German and Russian профессор (professor),^[7][8] and Gabinschi sees ⟨profesór⟩ as the Latin word fitted to the Romanian agent nouns in ⟨-tor⟩, perhaps helped by the French and Italian words.^[8] The Latin noun is formed on profiteor (“to declare publicly, profess”), from prō- and fateor (“to acknowledge”).^[9][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a calendar of 1794: „Jupânul Berbec, profesorul său” “Master Berbec, his teacher”.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) explains profesoru by învățătoriu, instructoru and dascalu, with Latin professor and moderator.^[12] Negulici (1848) defines it as one who gives lessons in a science,^[13] and Barcianu (1886) as a public teacher.^[14] Scriban noted that officially the title belonged only to university and secondary-school teachers of a science, primary teachers being institutori in towns and învățători in villages, but that people called them all profesori.^[7] The feminine has been profesoară, with the older profesoreasă and profesoriță.^[5]

Timeline

• 1794 – profesor “teacher” in a calendar, the first record.^[2][3][5]
• 1825 – profesoru in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[12]
• 1848 – professor in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[13]
• 1886 – Barcianu glosses it with German Lehrer and Professor.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A qualified teacher who teaches a subject in a school or in higher education;^[4][3][1] profesor universitar “university professor”, the highest teaching rank.^[4][3][1]
2. (loosely) A primary-school teacher, properly an învățător.^[4][3]
3. By extension, anyone who guides, educates or teaches someone.^[4]

Related words

• Latin professor

Usage notes

Both profésor and profesór are accepted.^[4] MDA2 records many regional forms, among them prefesor, profesăr and profisor.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. profesor
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, 562
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 881
5. ^ 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. profesor
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. profesor
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1059
8. ^ a b Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 146
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 724
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ 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. 553
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 510