ritual

Forms

ritual m or n (feminine singular rituală, masculine plural rituali, feminine/neuter plural rituale); noun ritual n (plural ritualuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French rituel, with Italian rituale as a second model, as DEX and DILF give it.^[1][2][3] MDA2, the DLR and NODEX add borrowed from Latin rītuālis (“relating to religious rites”) and German Ritual, and MDN gives the French, Italian and Latin words together: an etymology with several sources.^[4][5][6][7] Scriban took it from Latin alone.^[8] The Latin adjective is formed from rītus (“religious rite”) with the suffix -ālis.^[9] The German word is a collective noun to Ritus.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 has the noun ritualŭ for the book that holds the rites, prayers and instructions of the church services.^[11] The adjective appears in Barițiu's history of Transylvania (1889): a service held “with all the ritual pomp”.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

The adjective means “relating to rites, done according to a rite”; as a noun the word first named the book of a church's ceremonies, then the order of a religious service itself.^[1][12][8] It was extended to the traditional ceremonies of birth, marriage, death, sowing and harvest that folklore studies describe.^[1][13] The DLRLC quotes figurative uses for any fixed routine, such as a Sunday walk.^[14] The adjective has the plural rituali, rituale, the noun ritualuri.^[1]

Timeline

• 1870 – ritualŭ “book of rites” in Costinescu's dictionary.^[11]
• 1886 – the adjective and the noun “church book” in Barcianu's dictionary.^[15]
• 1889 – the adjective in Barițiu's history of Transylvania, the first record MDA2 gives.^[4][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Relating to rites; done according to a rite.^[1][4]

Noun

1. The prescribed order of a religious service; a religious ceremonial.^[1]
2. A ceremony performed by traditional rules at birth, marriage or death, or at sowing and harvest.^[1]
3. A book containing the prayers and ceremonies of a religious cult.^[4][12]
4. (figurative) A fixed, repeated routine.^[14]

Related words

• rit
• ritualic

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 957
2. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria
3. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 715
5. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. ritual
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. ritual
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
8. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1129
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
11. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 447
12. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 551
13. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
14. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 755
15. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 551