regulă

Forms

regulă f (plural reguli)^[1] MDA2 records the old variants regolă and regură, răgulă (regional) and the old plural regule.^[2] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 spells it regulă in its Latinist orthography and glosses it with Latin regula, norma, lex.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rēgula (“straight stick, ruler; rule”), a learned borrowing, with Italian regola as a further model and some senses after French règle.^[4][1][5] MDA2 names Latin and French, and DN Latin with the Italian and French words beside it.^[2][6] The Latin noun is formed from regō (“to rule, guide”) with the diminutive suffix -ula.^[1]

Ciorănescu dates the borrowing to the 19th century; the form is older.^[7][5] The same Latin word reached Romanian earlier through Greek as riglă “ruler”, from Modern Greek ρίγλα (rígla), so the two are doublets.^[7][1] Dosoftei used a form răgulă for an order or class, perhaps a Latinism.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and MDA2 take the first record from Foletul novei, the calendar kept at Constantin Brâncoveanu's court;^[3] Tiktin dates the entry to 1703, while MDA2's 1693 is the first year of the calendar.^[5][2] The sense was a rule or norm.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The Lexicon de la Buda (1825) gives three senses: a rule or law, a habit, and a person's or horse's whim.^[3] In the 19th century the word took the arithmetical sense of an operation, as in regula de trei “the rule of three”, and Costinescu also records it for menstruation.^[8] That popular sense survives in DEX.^[4]

The noun gave the verb regula “to regulate, put in order”, which later took coarse slang senses.^[7] Fixed phrases include de regulă “as a rule” and în regulă “all right, in order”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1703 – in Foletul novei, the first record.^[5][2]
• 1825 – regulă in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[3]
• 1870 – Cihac lists it with the verb regulez.^[9]
• 1870 – the rules of arithmetic and the sense “menstruation” in Costinescu.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rule, norm or law by which a process happens or an activity is carried out; a precept.^[4][1]
2. (mathematics) A method of solving a class of problems: regula de trei “the rule of three”.^[4][2]
3. A habit, a line of conduct, a guiding principle.^[4]
4. Order, orderliness;^[4] de regulă “usually, as a rule”, în regulă “in order, all right”.^[4]
5. (popular) menstruation.^[4]

Word family

• regula
• regulament

Related words

• lege
• riglă

Usage notes

The plural is reguli; the older regule is still recorded.^[4][2]

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, 682
3. ^ a b c d 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. 580
4. ^ 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. 938
5. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. regulă
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. regulă
7. ^ a b c d 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. regulă
8. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 417
9. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 229