rege

Forms

rege m (plural regi, feminine equivalent regină)^[1]

Etymology

It is a semi-learned loan of the 19th century, borrowed from Latin rēgem (“king”), the accusative form.^[1][2][3] Gabinschi also counts rege, the old Italian form, among its sources.^[4] It is a doublet of the older rigă, which came from Byzantine Greek ῥήγας (rhḗgas), as did Aromanian rigă and Albanian reg.^[2][1]

The Latin word comes from Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs (“king, ruler”).^[1][5] It lives on in the Romance languages: Italian re, French roi, Spanish rey and Portuguese rei.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1841, in Gheorghe Asachi.^[8] The DLR quotes the passage: an embassy was sent in great pomp, „care au hărăzit regelui o spadă și coiful sfințit” “which gave the king a sword and the consecrated helmet”.^[9] MDA2 cites the same text in a modern edition.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word spread with the Latinist vocabulary of the mid-19th century: Negulici listed it in 1848 as “monarch, sovereign head of a kingdom”.^[11] MDA2 marks the older rigă in this sense as obsolete, and Pisone in 1865 still glosses rege with crai.^[10][12]

Figurative senses followed: the leading person in a field, as regele poeților “the king of poets”, or the noblest of a kind, as the lion, regele animalelor.^[7][13] It is also the king in chess and in cards.^[3][14]

Timeline

• 1841 – first record, in Asachi.^[8][9]
• 1848 – listed by Negulici.^[11]
• 1862 – Pontbriant gives it with Latin rex as its source.^[15]
• 1929 – Șăineanu records the chess piece and the figurative senses.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A king: the sovereign of a kingdom, a monarch.^[3][1]
2. (figurative) The person with the most important position in a field, through power, importance or skill: regele oțelului.^[3][7]
3. (chess) The king piece, whose loss decides the game.^[3][1]
4. (cards) The king, a card showing a king's head.^[3]

Word family

• regat
• regesc
• regește
• regățean

Related words

• regină
• rigă
• regal
• regent
• Latin rex

Usage notes

A separate verb rege “to rule”, from Latin regere, is an obsolete Latinism, recorded in Barițiu.^[9][10] The feminine is regină.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. rege
3. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 936
4. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 152
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1111
8. ^ 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. rege
9. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. rege
10. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 679
11. ^ 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. rege
12. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 326
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. rege
14. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 541
15. ^ Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 618