roată

Forms

roată f (plural roți or roate)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rota (“wheel”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *Hret- (“to run, roll”).^[1][6]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian aroatã and Megleno-Romanian roată.^[7][8][2] Its Romance cognates include Italian ruota, French roue, Spanish rueda and Portuguese roda.^[2][9] Albanian rrotë is a loan from the same Latin word.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is a document of 1451.^[5] In Romanian texts the word appears in Coresi's psalter of 1570, and MDA2 dates it to the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[10][4] In the old psalters it could also mean the chariot itself, not just its wheel.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the wheel of a cart the word passed to other wheel-shaped things: the mill wheel, the spinning wheel and the potter's wheel, a round cheese, the wheel of torture.^{[3][5][11][12]} It also names a ring of people or things, as in a sta roată “to stand in a circle”, and a circular movement, as in a da roată “to go round”.^[5][11] Roata norocului “the wheel of fortune” and roata lumii “the course of the world” carry the image of turning fortune, as in Pann's Nu știi cum se-ntoarce roata “you never know how the wheel will turn”.^[5][3]

Regional senses include a device for reeling silk from the cocoons and a round dance.^[13][14] In slang it can mean roulette, the legs, or a pill of a drug.^[15] Romanian formed rotar “wheelwright”, rotaș “wheel horse”, roti “to turn round”, rotiță “small wheel” and rotocol “ring, circle”.^[2]

Timeline

• 1451 – the first record, in a document.^[5]
• 1570 – roată in Coresi's psalter.^[10]
• c. 1573–1578 – the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4]
• 1660 – the Slavonic–Romanian lexicons gloss Slavonic kolo “wheel”.^[16]
• 1688 – roată and roate in the Bucharest Bible.^[17]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary: Latin rota.^[18]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda, with breaking on the wheel and totu roată “all around”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. wheel, a round frame of wood or metal, spoked or solid, that turns on an axle and moves a vehicle: Căruța și-a pierdut o roată.^[3][1]
2. (engineering) A wheel-shaped machine part that turns about its own axis.^[3]
3. Any object or device shaped like a wheel: roata olarului “the potter's wheel”, roata norocului “the wheel of fortune”.^[3]
4. A wheel used for torture and execution.^[11][2]
5. A circle formed by people or things; a circular movement: a da roată “to go round”.^[11]

Word family

• rotar
• rotărie
• rotaș
• roti
• rotitor
• rotiță
• rotocol

Related words

• Aromanian aroatã
• Latin rota

Usage notes

The plural is roți, less often roate.^[4][1] Common expressions: a merge ca pe roate “to go like clockwork”, a fi cu trei roate la car “to be not all there”.^[3] The DEX and MDA2 list a separate obsolete roată, plural roate, “company of soldiers”, first recorded in Ureche's chronicle of about 1640; it is a loan from Polish rota, which comes from German Rotte, and some sources also name Russian.^[5][3][4][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. roată
3. ^ 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. 958
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, 717
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. roată
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 149
8. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 250
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7387
10. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 76:17
11. ^ a b c d Breban, Vasile (1980), Dicționar al limbii române contemporane de uz curent, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 517
12. ^ a b 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. 595
13. ^ Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. 371
14. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. roată
15. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. roată
16. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. roată
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ps 76:16
18. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 433