secțiune

Forms

secțiune f (plural secțiuni)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French section, with Latin sectio (“a cutting”) as a second source, one of the many neologisms that Romanian dictionaries give with two sources at once.^[2][3][4][5] Scriban put the Latin first and the French second.^[6] The Latin noun is formed from secō (“to cut”) with the suffix -tiō.^[1][7] French borrowed the Latin word in 1366, first in the sense “schism, dissension”, and used it in geometry from 1564.^[8]

The same French and Latin words gave secție, a doublet with an administrative sense, for which DEX and the DLR also name Russian секция (sekcija).^[1][2][9] The DLR treats it as a variant of the latter.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 gives no record before the DEX of 1975.^[3] The word is older: Barițiu's Hungarian–Romanian dictionary of 1869 gives secţiune as an equivalent of Hungarian szakasz and osztály, in the sense “part, division” of a book or an institution.^[11][12] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 has secţiune beside secţie for a division of a work and a district of a town, and in geometry for the place where lines or planes cut each other.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word meant a division: of a book, a classification, a town, a platoon of soldiers or a council, the senses that Șăineanu still listed first in 1929.^[13][14] Scriban recorded the military sense of half a battery or half a platoon.^[6] These administrative senses passed to secție, and secțiune kept the senses of cutting.^[2][9]

The modern senses are technical: the act of cutting, the surface where a solid is cut by a plane, a drawing of that surface, and in mathematics the intersection of two sets.^[2][4] MDA2 lists a medical sense, the cutting of an organ or a nerve.^[3]

Timeline

• 1869 – secţiune “division, section” in Barițiu's Hungarian–Romanian dictionary.^[11]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary, with the geometrical sense.^[13]
• 1886 – Barcianu glosses it German Abschnitt.^[15]
• 1975 – the first record MDA2 gives, in the DEX.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of cutting through something; a cut, and the place where it was made or the part cut off.^[2][3]
2. The surface formed where a solid is cut by a plane or a curved surface, and the area of that surface.^[2]
3. (technology) A drawing of the surface where a plane cuts a machine part or a structure: secțiune longitudinală, secțiune transversală.^[2][16]
4. (mathematics) The intersection of two sets.^[2][4]
5. A part or division of a whole: of a book, an exhibition or an organization.^[3][6]

Related words

• secție
• secționa
• sector
• Latin sectio

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 998
3. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 843
4. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. secțiune
5. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. secțiune
6. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1183
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sectiō
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. secție
10. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. secțiune
11. ^ a b Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 502
12. ^ Barițiu, George (1869), Dictionariu unguresc-romanescu, Brașov, p. 417
13. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 497
14. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 581
15. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 578
16. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. secțiune