salvă

Forms

salvă f (plural salve)^[1] A regional plural sălburi is recorded.^[2] Negulici (1848) writes it salvă in the transitional alphabet, glossed “firing of cannon”.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French salve (“salvo”), and DLR and MDA2 add borrowed from German Salve; the neologism dictionaries name Italian salva beside the French word.^[2][4][5][6] Scriban takes the French word from the Italian one, as French Wiktionary does.^[7][1] Kluge and Pfeifer derive the French noun from Latin salvē (“hail, be well”), a Latin greeting, the imperative of salveō (“to be well”), from salvus (“safe, sound”): the guns fired together as a salute, and the word was then used of any simultaneous fire.^[8][9]

Ciorănescu lists the noun under the verb salva “to save”, but as a borrowing from French.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is from 1829: salvoes of artillery announcing the sultan's arrival, „Salvele de artilerie au făcut cunoscută venirea sultanului”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The early records describe salutes: in 1831 the ships and harbour batteries were to fire salvoes, and in 1834 sailors greeted an arrival with salvoes of cannon.^[4] Costinescu (1870) defines the word as a firing of many guns to salute someone or for rejoicing, and also the firing in drill or battle.^[11] Modern dictionaries define it simply as shots fired at once from several guns, and salvă de salut as a salute fired without projectiles.^[5][12]

The noise of the firing became a sense of its own.^[2] The figurative o salvă de aplauze “a burst of applause” is in Vlahuță and in Scriban.^[13][7]

Timeline

• 1829 – salvele de artilerie “the salvoes of artillery”, the first record.^[2][4]
• 1831 – ships and batteries ordered to fire salvoes.^[4]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[3]
• 1870 – Costinescu defines it as the firing of guns in salute, drill or battle.^[11]
• 1929 – o salvă de aplauze “a burst of applause” in Șăineanu's dictionary.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (military) A salvo or volley: shots from guns or rifles fired at the same time, often on solemn or festive occasions;^{[5][2][12][1]} salvă de salut “salute fired with blanks”.^{[5][2][12][1]}
2. The noise of such firing.^[2]
3. (figurative) A burst: o salvă de aplauze “a round of applause”.^{[7][14][13][1]}

Related words

• salva
• salut
• French salve

Usage notes

The verb salva “to save” is a separate word, a borrowing from Latin and Italian; its obsolete present form (el) salvă “he saves”, beside the usual salvează, belongs to it, not to this noun.^[1][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 752
3. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. salvă
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. salvă
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 973
6. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. salvă
7. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1151
8. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 784
9. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
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. salva
11. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 463
12. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. salvă
13. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 8
14. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 561
15. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. salva