rasă

rasă¹ race, breed

Forms

rasă f (plural rase)^[1]

Etymology

The word for race or breed is borrowed from French race, with German Rasse as a second source in DEX 2009, MDA2, the DLR and Tiktin.^[2][3][4][5] Ciorănescu and Wiktionary give French only.^[6][1] The French word, first spelled rasse in the late 15th century, was borrowed from a southern form, Italian razza or Old Occitan rassa (“band, conspiracy”).^[7] The origin of the Italian word is uncertain: the DHLF prefers a shortened form of Latin generātiō (“generation”) to a derivation from ratiō.^[7] Scriban thought it might be Slavic.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1830, in Albina românească, with the sense “race, breed”.^[5] MDA2's first record is Stamati's dictionary of technical and difficult words of 1851.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word was used of the human races and, loosely, of a people or nation: Maiorescu wrote of the Romanians as a nation de rasă latină “of Latin race”.^[4] Costinescu in 1870 spelled it rassă and glossed it with spiță, specie, soi and neam.^[9] The biological sense, a variety of a species with inherited traits, became the first sense of the modern dictionaries, with the phrase de rasă “thoroughbred, of good stock”.^[2][10] Scriban notes an ironic use for a class of people of the same trade, rasa cămătarilor “the race of usurers”.^[8]

Timeline

• 1830 – the first record, in Albina românească.^[5]
• 1851 – in Stamati's dictionary of difficult words.^[3]
• 1859 – o rasă de oameni nenorociți “a race of unhappy people”, of enslaved Africans.^[4]
• 1870 – Costinescu spells it rassă.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A breed or variety within a species of microorganisms, plants or animals, with constant inherited traits;^[2][3] de rasă “thoroughbred, select”: un câine de rasă.^[2][3]
2. A human race, one of the biological groups of populations distinguished by skin and hair colour and other outward traits.^[2][11]
3. (loosely) A people, neam; a kind or sort.^[3][4]

rasă² cassock

Forms

rasă f (plural rase)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a monk's or priest's cassock is borrowed from Byzantine Greek ῥάσον (rháson), taken partly by way of Old Church Slavonic раса (rasa).^[6][12] Ciorănescu gives the Greek source, the DLR, DEX 2009 and MDA2 the Slavonic one, and Tiktin both.^{[6][4][2][3][12]} The Slavic languages share the word, among them Bulgarian раса (rasa), and Russian has the related ряса (rjasa).^[6][13] The Byzantine Greek word comes from Italian raso (“satin”) and Latin rāsus (“shaved, smooth”), cloth with a shorn nap.^[13][14] Scriban explains it rather as a garment worn smooth by use.^[8]

It survives south of the Danube as Aromanian rasă, with the variants arasă and raze, which Papahagi and Pascu also take from the Greek.^[15][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1632, in Eustratie's Pravila.^[12] The DLR's first quotation is from Vasile Lupu's Pravila (1646): whoever urges another to cast off his cassock, să leapede rasele, shall be beheaded.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The sense has stayed the same: the long black outer garment worn by monks, nuns and priests.^[4][2] Dosoftei has a cassock of hair cloth, and a text of about 1750 says that the cassock seems an ornament.^[4] In the 19th century a lepăda rasa “to cast off the cassock” and a îmbrăca rasa “to put on the cassock” meant leaving and entering monastic life, as in Ispirescu.^[4] The old plural răși appears in the chronicler Gheorghachi.^[4][3]

The derivative rasofor “monk who has taken the first vows” is a separate borrowing from Modern Greek ρασοφόρος (rasofóros).^[6]

Timeline

• 1632 – the first record, in Eustratie's Pravila.^[12]
• 1646 – să leapede rasele in Vasile Lupu's Pravila.^[4][3]
• c. 1750 – Rasa îmi pare o podoabă “the cassock seems an ornament to me”.^[4]
• 1776 – îmbrăcându-se cu rase “putting on cassocks” in a Menaion.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cassock: the long, wide garment, usually black, reaching to the heels, worn by priests, monks and nuns over their other clothes.^[2][3]

Word family

• rasofor