saltea

Forms

saltea f (plural saltele)^[1] A late 18th-century inventory has seltele, closer to the Greek form: „1 seltele, 1 plapoma” “1 mattress, 1 quilt” (1798).^[2][3] MDA2 also records a regional form săltea and an old plural salteli.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek σελτές (seltés, “mattress”), according to MDA2, the DLR, Gáldi and Tiktin, who follows Cihac and Miklosich.^[3][2][4][5] DEX writes the Greek form with ⟨i⟩, and Wiktionary gives σιλτής (siltís).^[6][1] The Greek word comes from Ottoman Turkish شلته (şilte, “thin mattress”).^[7][8][5] Wiktionary takes the Turkish word further back to Persian چلته (čelte).^[1] Eren notes that Turkish dialects also have çilte and silte.^[9]

Ciorănescu starts from the Turkish word and has it pass through Greek, comparing Albanian šiljte and Serbo-Croatian šilta.^[10] Șăineanu thought in 1885 that the Romanian word could come straight from Turkish, which also has a form with /e/, and in 1900 he treated it among the Turkish loans.^[11][12] Laurian and Massim rejected a Turkish origin in 1871 and tried to derive it from Latin saliō (“to jump”), a view of the Latinist school only.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1765, in a document published by Iorga.^[5] The DLR's first quotations are inventories of household goods: a mattress of satin in 1780, and in 1797 „două saltele, una de atlaz și una de cit” “two mattresses, one of satin and one of chintz”.^[2][12]

Semantic evolution

Șăineanu distinguished two uses in the old texts.^[12] One is a cushion for sitting on the floor in the Turkish manner, as when the aghas seated an envoy „pe saltea” and gave him coffee and a pipe, or a prince was found sitting on mattresses in 1822.^[12][2] The other is a mattress for sleeping.^[12] The second is the modern sense, now extended to mattresses filled with air or water and to protective mats in sport.^[3][6]

The sitting cushion left several idioms: a ședea pe saltea “to live at ease, doing nothing” (Tiktin's “to rest on down”), also “to be rich”, a pune sub saltea “to put aside”, in an Alecsandri quotation “to shelve” a promise, and de pe saltea “without effort”.^{[5][3][14][12]} Engineering took the word for protective layers: saltea de apă is a small water cushion at the foot of a dam, saltea de beton a lining of concrete slabs along a riverbed.^[6][15] In slang it means “girlfriend, mistress”.^[16]

Timeline

• 1765 – first record, in a document published by Iorga.^[5]
• 1780 – a satin mattress in a Moldavian inventory in the Uricariul.^[2][3]
• 1797 – două saltele “two mattresses”, one of satin and one of chintz.^[2][12]
• 1798 – the form seltele.^[2]
• 1822 – a prince found sitting on saltele in the Turkish manner.^[12][2]
• 1871 – Laurian and Massim propose a Latin origin.^[13]
• 1900 – Șăineanu's Influența orientală treats it among the Turkish loans.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mattress: a flat bag of cloth or plastic filled with wool, straw, seaweed or wadding, or blown up with air, laid on a bed or used to float on water: o saltea de lână, o saltea pneumatică.^[6][3]
2. (engineering) A protective layer: saltea de apă a small reservoir at the foot of a dam that softens the fall of the water, saltea de beton a lining of concrete slabs for a riverbed, saltea de piatră a layer of dry stone that collects seepage in a tunnel.^[6]
3. (slang) A girlfriend or mistress.^[16]

Word family

• salteluță

Related words

• mindir

Usage notes

Idioms: a sta (a ședea) pe saltea “to idle in comfort, to be well off”, a pune sub saltea “to save, to put money by”, de pe saltea “without lifting a finger”, and a se întinde cât ține salteaua “to cut one's coat according to one's cloth”.^[3][14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. saltea
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, 751
4. ^ Gáldi, Ladislas (1939), Les mots d'origine néo-grecque en roumain à l'époque des Phanariotes, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Egyetemi Nyomda, p. 247
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. saltea
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 973
7. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
8. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 837
9. ^ Eren, Hasan (1999), Türk Dilinin Etimolojik Sözlüğü, Ankara: Bizim Büro, p. 386
10. ^ 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. saltea
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1885), Elemente turcești în limba română, București (offprint from Revista pentru istorie, archeologie și filologie), p. 90
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Șăineanu, Lazăr (1900), Influența orientală asupra limbei și culturei române, vol. I: Introducerea; vol. II.1: Vorbele populare; vol. II.2: Vorbele istorice, literare, Indice, București: Socec, p. 2, 311
13. ^ a b Laurian, A. T.; Massim, I. C. (1871), Glossariu care coprinde vorbele d'in limba romana straine prin originea sau form'a loru, cumu si celle de origine indouiosa, Bucuresci: Noua Typographia a Laboratoriloru Romani, p. s.v. saltea
14. ^ a b Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. saltea
15. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 7
16. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. saltea