raft

Forms

raft n (plural rafturi)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish راف (raf, “shelf”), which is from Arabic رَفّ (raff, “shelf”).^[1][2][3] DLR, and Ciorănescu after Tiktin, also note a Turkish form with a final /t/.^[2][4] DEX names Bulgarian рафт (raft) as a second source.^[5] The Bulgarian word came the same way, through Turkish from Arabic, and Albanian and Serbo-Croatian have the word as well.^[6][4] NODEX alone gives a Ukrainian source.^[7]

Șăineanu and Scriban derived both this word and the obsolete word for a harness from Persian رخت (raxt, “furniture, goods”), explaining only the forms without a final /t/ by the Turkish word.^[8][9] The word is found south of the Danube too: Aromanian arafă (“shelf”), which Papahagi and Pascu also take from Turkish.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Molnar's German–Romanian grammar of 1788.^[12] MDA2 dates it only from Polizu's Romanian–German dictionary of 1857, and Costinescu in 1870 glosses it as a shelf for goods, French étagère and rayon.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

The word belonged first to shops: Șăineanu's examples are shelves of goods in folk tales and in descriptions of town life, a merchant who sold „rafturi și tarabă” “his shelves and his stall”.^[8] It then spread to any shelf in a cupboard, on a set of shelves or along a wall, above all for books.^[2][5] A regional sense is “wall niche”, recorded by the Moldavian linguistic atlas.^[2][13] Slang uses it for the backside, a prison cell, the stomach and a bed.^[15]

Timeline

• 1788 – the first record, in Molnar's German–Romanian grammar.^[12]
• 1857 – raft in Polizu's Romanian–German dictionary.^[13]
• 1870 – raftŭ “shelf for goods” in Costinescu's dictionary.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A shelf, fixed inside a cupboard, in a set of shelves or along the walls of a room, especially in a shop or library.^[5][13]
2. (regional) A wall niche.^[13][2]
3. (slang) The backside; a prison cell; the stomach; a bed.^[15]

Related words

• Aromanian arafă
• poliță
• etajeră

Usage notes

DEX has a second, obsolete raft “rich harness”, used mostly in the plural rafturi for the decorated harness of a horse.^[5] It is from Ottoman Turkish raht, of Persian origin, and is recorded from 1621;^{[5][16][13][2]} Varlaam's Cazania of 1643 speaks of „cai cu rafturi scumpe” “horses with costly harness”.^{[5][16][13][2]} At the princely courts a rahtivan looked after this harness.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. raft
3. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium
4. ^ 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. raft
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 910
6. ^ Georgiev, Vladimir I. et al. (eds.) (1971–), Bălgarski etimologičen rečnik, Sofija: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata akademija na naukite, p. 6, 191
7. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional
8. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1900), Influența orientală asupra limbei și culturei române, vol. I: Introducerea; vol. II.1: Vorbele populare; vol. II.2: Vorbele istorice, literare, Indice, București: Socec, p. 2, 299
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
11. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 2, 108
12. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. raft 1
13. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 620
14. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci
15. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu
16. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. raft 2