schimb

Forms

schimb n (plural schimburi)^[1] Old and regional variants include scaimb, scămp, scâmb and știmb.^[2] Budai-Deleanu's Țiganiada has scîmb: „prin scîmb, de mult cumpărasă” “he had bought it long ago by exchange”.^[3]

Etymology

It is a postverbal noun, a back-formation from Romanian schimba (“to change, exchange”).^{[4][5][2][3][1]} The verb is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excambiō, formed on cambiō (“to exchange”) with the prefix ex-.^[4][6][1] Ciorănescu explains the Romanian sound shape by a metathesis of ⟨*scîmbia⟩ to ⟨*scîimba⟩, as in aibă from habeat.^[4] Megleno-Romanian has the verb as Megleno-Romanian schimb.^[4]

The noun matches the Romance nouns made from the same verb, Italian scambio and French échange.^[4][7][8] Pușcariu compared the plural sense “clean underwear” with Italian mutande “underpants”, from a verb meaning “to change”, and Cihac made the same comparison.^[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578), where the noun means “ransom, price paid in exchange”: „Nu deade lu Dumnedzeu schimbu dereptu sine” “he did not give God a ransom for himself” (Psalm 48:8).^[3][5][2] In 17th-century texts it means an exchange of goods, of land or of serfs: Nicolae Costin tells of an exchange with the German emperor that left Transylvania to him.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the act of giving one thing for another, the noun came to mean the replacement of one person by another, and so the relief of a sentry, the relief guard itself and its turn of duty.^[5][7][9] In the 19th century the soldat cu schimbul was a soldier of the călărași or dorobanți who served one week a month in rotation with others.^[5][10] The plural schimburi “a change of clothes, clean underwear” is old and was marked as Moldavian by Șăineanu.^[5][10]

Commerce and economics gave the word its modern technical senses: the exchange of money, liber schimb “free trade”, the circulation of goods, and the shift of workers in a factory.^{[7][9][11][2]} Technical phrases such as piesă de schimb “spare part” and schimb de materii “metabolism” followed.^[9][2]

Timeline

• c. 1573–1578 – schimbu “ransom” in the Psaltirea Scheiană, the first record.^[2][5][3]
• 1649 – the word glosses Slavonic words for change and exchange in Mardarie's lexicon.^[12]
• 1688 – schimbul in the Bucharest Bible (John 2:15).^[13]
• 1814 – schimburi “exchanges” among sales and leases in a legal code.^[3]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it with Latin commutatio, permutatio.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The replacement of one person or thing by another of the same kind; the phrase cu schimbul means “in turn, by rotation”.^[9][2]
2. An exchange: giving one thing to receive another in its place; in economics, the circulation of goods between producers and consumers.^[9][2][1]
3. What is received in return;^[9] în schimb “instead, in return”, în schimbul “in exchange for”.^[9]
4. The changing of money into another currency: casă de schimb “exchange office”.^[11]
5. A shift: a team of workers who relieve another, and the hours they work.^[9][11]
6. (in the plural) A change of clothes, clean underwear.^[9][5]

Related words

• schimba
• Megleno-Romanian schimb

Usage notes

Piesă de schimb is a spare part, schimb de cuvinte a heated exchange of words, a quarrel.^[9] Liber schimb is free trade.^[11][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 804
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. schimb
4. ^ a b c d e 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. schimba
5. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. schimb
6. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 139
7. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1169
8. ^ a b Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 246
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 988
10. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 573
11. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. schimb
12. ^ 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. schimb
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Jn 2:15
14. ^ 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. 618