rotilă

Forms

rotilă f (plural rotile)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian roată + -ilă, a diminutive of roată “wheel”.^[2][3][1] Scriban compares the same suffix in scărilă.^[4] The noun is from Latin rota (“wheel”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Klein's dictionary of about 1801 lists rotila and rotella with the German gloss “plough wheels”.^[5] MDA2 dates it from the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825, which refers the word to rotiță “little wheel”.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Two senses run side by side from the first records: any small wheel, and the wheels of the plough's fore-carriage.^[2][7] In the plural the word came to name the fore-carriage itself (cotigă).^[2][8] Scriban labelled it a western word, used for the wheel of a plough, a wheelbarrow or a small machine.^[4] The plough sense is the one of folk poetry, Cu cealmaua capului / Cât rotila plugului “with a turban on his head as big as a plough wheel”.^[9]

Regional senses come from the round shape: a coiled pad of cloth that women put on the head to carry loads, a large sunflower head, and in Moldova a ring of the stove plate.^[3][10] A riddle has the derived adjective rotilan “round”.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1801 – rotila, rotella “plough wheels” in Klein's dictionary.^[5]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda, as a synonym of rotiță.^[6][3]
• 1865 – Pisone glosses it with Latin rotula.^[12]
• 1870 – Costinescu: the small wheel of a plough or a wheelbarrow.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small wheel.^[2][3][1]
2. Each of the two wheels of the plough's fore-carriage; in the plural, the fore-carriage itself (cotigă).^[2][9]
3. (regional) A coiled pad of cloth worn on the head when carrying loads.^[3]
4. (regional) A large sunflower head.^[3]

Related words

• roată
• rotiță

Usage notes

MDA2 records a regional idiom a fi vreme între rotile, “to have very little time”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 963
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 729
4. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1139
5. ^ a b 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
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 452
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 554
9. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 778
10. ^ Stati, Vasile (2003), Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc, Chișinău, p. s.v. rotilă
11. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. rotilan
12. ^ Pisone, Domițian (1865), Dictionariu românescu, latinescu, germanescu și francescu, lucrat după sistemul Lexiconului de Buda, București: Typografia Ioann Weiss, p. 834