profil

Forms

profil n (plural profiluri)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French profil, with German Profil beside it, the two sources MDA2, DLR and Tiktin name.^[2][3][4] DEX and Wiktionary give French alone, and DN adds Italian profilo.^[5][1][6] The French word was taken in 1621 from the Italian one, “a face seen from the side”, a noun formed on profilare (“to draw in outline”), properly “to hem”, made of pro- and filare (“to spin”); it replaced Old French porfil (“border”).^[7][1] Graur places it in the family of Latin fīlum (“thread”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1806.^[4] MDA2's first record is a text of 1829 describing a bronze medal whose face shows a profile with a Latin inscription.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was the outline of a face seen from the side, as in Eminescu's „O fată trece c-un profil / Rotund și dulce de copil” “a girl goes by with a round, sweet, childlike profile”.^[3][4] Costinescu (1870) also records the outline of a town or other object seen from one side, and Scriban the technical section of a building or terrain and the literary portrait of a person.^[9][10] Engineering and geology added the cross-section and its drawing, the moulding on a façade and the rolled steel section.^[5][11] From 1963 the press uses it for the specialisation of a school, factory or institution: facultate de profil “a faculty in the relevant field”.^[12]

Timeline

• 1806 – first record, after Tiktin.^[4]
• 1829 – the profile of a face on a medal.^[2][3]
• 1848 – listed in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms, in the transitional alphabet.^[13]
• 1870 – the outline of a town seen from one side, in Costinescu.^[9]
• 1963 – the sense “specialisation of an institution” in the press.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The outline of a person's face seen from the side;^[5][1] din (or în) profil “from the side”;^[5][1] (figurative) a portrait, a character sketch.^[5][1]
2. Appearance, shape; the predominant character of someone or something; the contour of a landform: profil geologic “geological section”.^[5]
3. The contour of a plane section of an object, building or geometric body.^[5]
4. A drawing of a vertical section through a construction or the ground.^[5]
5. A decorative relief element on a building; a moulding.^[5][11]
6. The main field of activity of an enterprise or institution; its specialisation.^[5][12]

Related words

• fir

Usage notes

The plural is profiluri;^[2][14] profile is rare.^[2][14] A separate profil, recorded by MDA2 and DLR, is a regional variant of porfiră “purple”.^[2][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 562
3. ^ 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. profil
4. ^ 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. profil
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 882
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. profil
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 42
9. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 365
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1059
11. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. profil
12. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. profil
13. ^ 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. profil
14. ^ a b Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. profil