scop

Forms

scop n (plural scopuri)^[1] The old form is scopos (plural scopose, scoposuri), with the Greek ending: „acest scopos avea ca în cea din urmă să ia tot Crâmul” “they had this aim, to take the whole Crimea in the end” (Văcărescu).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek σκοπός (skopós, “aim, purpose”), a loan of the 17th century, as Ciorănescu, DEX, Tiktin and Wiktionary give it.^[4][5][2][1] DLR, MDA2 and NODEX add borrowed from Latin scopus (“goal, target”), which supported the modern form;^[6][3][7][8] Scriban gives Italian scopo and Latin.^[6][3][7][8] The old form scopos keeps the Greek ending, like other Greek loans of the 18th and 19th centuries.^[8][2] The word is also Aromanian scupó (plural ⟨scupadz⟩), from Greek.^[9][10][11]

The Ancient Greek word σκοπός (skopós) is formed on the root of σκέπτομαι (sképtomai, “to look at, observe”).^[1][12] It first meant “watcher, lookout”, then “the mark one looks at, a target”, and already in Plato “aim, intention”.^[12] The Latin word is a loan from the Greek word.^[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Varlaam's Cazania of 1643, where the old form has the sense “tune, melody”: „în loc de surle și de scopose frumoase, țipete și vaiete groaznice” “instead of trumpets and fine tunes, shrieks and dreadful wailing”.^[2] The sense “purpose” is first in the Moldavian law code of Vasile Lupu's time: „cu scopos ca cela, ca să-i ia dzeastrele” “with that aim, to take her dowry”.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century scopos was the usual form in many texts, with the senses “aim” and “intention, design”.^[6][2] The sense “tune” was still current then.^[8][4] The short form scop is in Klein's dictionary of 1801 and the Lexicon de la Buda of 1825, which glosses it with Latin scopus and German Zweck, Absicht.^[14][15]

Phrases include a-și ajunge scopul “to reach one's goal”, cu scop de “with the intention of” (both in Barcianu, 1886) and the prepositional în scopul “for the purpose of”.^[16][5] Scriban condemned a atinge scopul, a calque of French atteindre le but.^[8]

Timeline

• 1643 – scopose “tunes” in Varlaam's Cazania, the first record.^[2]
• 17th century – scopos “aim” in the Moldavian law code of Vasile Lupu's time.^[6][3]
• 1801 – scóp in Klein's dictionary.^[14]
• 1825 – scopu in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[15]
• 1870 – scop “aim, plan, intention” in Costinescu.^[17]
• 1886 – a-și ajunge scopul in Barcianu.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. purpose, aim, goal: what someone sets out to achieve: Scopul lor era să câștige. “Their aim was to win.”^[5][3][1]
2. Intended use, destination.^[3]
3. In în scopul + genitive: for the purpose of, in order to.^[5][18]
4. (obsolete, as scopos) A tune, a melody.^[4][2]

Related words

• Aromanian scupó
• Ancient Greek σκοπός (skopós)

Usage notes

Separately, old Romanian had a masculine scop (plural scopi) “eunuch”, in Dosoftei: DLR takes it as a back-formation from scopi “to castrate” and compares Polish skop, from which Tiktin derives it.^[6][2][3] The second element of learned compounds such as microscop is -scop, from French -scope and Italian -scopo.^[19][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. scop
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, 817
4. ^ a b c 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. scop
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 992
6. ^ 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. scop
7. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. scop
8. ^ a b c d e Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1173
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 935
10. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 2, 85
11. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 915
12. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1344
13. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ 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. 439
15. ^ 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. 620
16. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 572
17. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 486
18. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 61
19. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. scop
20. ^ Andrei, Nicolae (1987), Dicționar etimologic de termeni științifici: elemente de compunere greco-latine, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. s.v. scop