secol

Forms

secol n (plural secole)^[1] Older texts also have the masculine secul, plural seculi, and once seclu: „De scriitorii românești în provinciile danubiane de în acest seclu nu aflăm altă cunoștință” “of Romanian writers in the Danubian provinces in this century we know nothing else” (Cipariu, quoted by Odobescu).^[2][3] Besides the usual neuter plural secole, a masculine plural secoli was common in the 19th century: Bălcescu writes of „acești optsprezece secoli” “these eighteen centuries”.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin saeculum (“generation, lifetime, century”), and also borrowed from Italian secolo;^{[4][3][2][5][1]} DEX, MDA2, DLR and the neologism dictionaries give both sources.^{[4][3][2][5][1]} Scriban takes the older form secul from Latin and explains the present form as a reshaping after Italian.^[6]

The Latin word meant first “generation”, then the span of a generation, fixed at a hundred years, and in Church Latin “the world”, a rendering of Ancient Greek αἰών (aiṓn).^[7][8] De Vaan traces it to Proto-Italic *saitlom and Proto-Indo-European *seh₂i-tlo- (“lifespan”), with Welsh hoedl (“lifespan”) as a Celtic cognate.^[9] Italian took its word from Latin as a learned word in the 13th century.^[7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 and DLR give as the first record Ioan Teodorovici's Romanian version (1824) of a universal history, where the translator explains the plural secule with veacuri: everything people had done in this wide world over the centuries.^[3][2] The sense there is already “a hundred years”;^[2] Săulescu soon after defines a secul as a hundred years.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word spread in the 19th-century historical and literary language: Bălcescu, Hasdeu, Eminescu and Caragiale use it for a period of a hundred years, usually as secul or with the plural secoli.^[2] Negulici's dictionary of neologisms of 1848 lists it with Latin saeculum and glosses it with veac, and Damé's dictionary of the 1890s refers the reader to veac as well.^[11][12]

From the span of a hundred years it came to mean a very long time and, by exaggeration, eternity; also an age marked by a person or an event (secolul lui Pericle “the age of Pericles”) and, in the plural, time as it unfolds and the generations living in it.^[4][3] A church sense “worldly life”, as against religious life, is rare.^[2][13] The old phrase secolul de mijloc meant the Middle Ages.^[4]

Timeline

• 1824 – secule “centuries” in Teodorovici's universal history, the first record.^[3][2]
• 1848 – listed in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[11]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary still sends secol to the form secul.^[14]
• 1939 – Scriban enters secul as the main form and secol as a variant.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A century: a period of a hundred years, counted from any date or within an era (the 20th century runs from 1901 to 2000); veac.^[4][3][1]
2. (figurative) A very long time; eternity: Nu ne-am văzut de un secol. “We haven't seen each other for ages.”^[4][15]
3. (in the plural) Time as it unfolds, and the generations living through it.^[4][3]
4. An epoch dominated by an outstanding person or event: secolul lui Pericle “the age of Pericles”.^[4][5]
5. (dated) In the phrase secolul de mijloc: the Middle Ages.^[4]

Related words

• veac
• Latin saeculum
• Italian secolo

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. secol
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, 841
4. ^ 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. 998
5. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. secol
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1184
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. secolo
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. saeculum
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. saeculum
10. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. secolo
11. ^ 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. secol
12. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. 2, s.v. secol
13. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 581
14. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 496
15. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. secol