scriitor

Forms

scriitor m (plural scriitori, feminine equivalent scriitoare)^[1] Old texts also have scrietoriu: the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki renders the pen of a ready writer as „trestie de cărtulariu repede scrietoriului” (Psalm 44:2).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian scrie (“to write”) + -tor, the agent noun of the verb.^{[4][3][2][5][1]} Scriban explains it through the suffix -ător, an older ⟨scriător⟩ or ⟨scrietor⟩ becoming the present form.^[6] The verb itself is from Latin scrībō (“to write”).^[5]

Cihac compared Latin scrīptor and Italian scrittore, and Wiktionary also Spanish escritor; these are parallel formations, not the source of the Romanian word.^[7][1] The same formation is found in Aromanian scriitor, from its verb scriu.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, in the form scrietoriului, in the verse about the pen of a ready writer (Psalm 44:2); Tiktin cites the same verse from the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[3][2][8] The sense there is simply “one who writes, a scribe”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the word meant anyone who writes: a scribe, the author of a book, and the clerk who drafted documents in a prince's chancery, where it competed with diac and logofăt.^[3][4][8] The chroniclers used it of historians: Ureche writes that many scriitori had laboured to set down the history of the lands.^[8][2] The 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons use it to gloss Slavonic words for “scribe” and “bookman”.^[9]

In the 19th century the sense narrowed to the author of literary works, the main sense today, while the clerk of an office or a village became dated.^[10][4] A neuter scriitor (plural scriitoare) “writing desk” was used by C. Negruzzi and is now obsolete.^[8][10] Recent press language forms compounds such as scriitor-diplomat and scriitor-țăran.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – scrietoriului in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3][2]
• 16th century – the same verse in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[8]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing a word for “bookman”.^[9]
• 1688 – scriitori in the Bucharest Bible.^[12]
• 1891 – Gaster's chrestomathy glosses it “writer”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A writer, an author of literary works: Sadoveanu este unul dintre cei mai citiți scriitori români.^[4][3]
2. (dated) A clerk in an office or chancery who copied or drafted documents and letters; a prince's or a high dignitary's secretary.^[4][3]
3. (obsolete; neuter, plural scriitoare) A writing desk.^[4][8]

Word family

• scriitoraș
• scriitoricesc

Related words

• scrie
• scris
• scrisoare
• Aromanian scriitor

Usage notes

The feminine is scriitoare.^[4][1] The word is pronounced in three syllables, scri-i-tor.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. scriitor
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, 824
4. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 994
5. ^ a b 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. scrie
6. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1176
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 248
8. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. scriitór
9. ^ a b 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. scriitor
10. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 67
11. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. scriitor
12. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Jer 8:8
13. ^ Gaster, M. (1891), Chrestomatie română: texte tipărite și manuscrise (sec. XVI–XIX), dialectale și populare, cu o introducere, gramatică și un glosar româno-francez, vol. II, Leipzig: Brockhaus / București: Socec, p. s.v. scriitor