senator

Forms

senator m (plural senatori, feminine equivalent senatoare or senatrice)^[1] Old texts also have sinator: Neculce wrote „Și să tot ruga sinatorilor, ca doar ar pute strica sfatul” “and he kept begging the senators, in case they could break up the council”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin senātor, with French sénateur as a second model.^[4][3][5][1] The word was in use in the 17th century, and Tiktin and Scriban give only the Latin source;^[6][7][3] MDA2 adds Russian сенатор (senator).^[6][7][3] Ciorănescu treats the modern word as taken from French along with senat.^[8]

The Latin word is formed on senātus (“senate”) with the agent suffix -tor, and the noun for the senate on senex (“old man”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1683, in Dosoftei's Lives of the Saints.^[6] MDA2's first record is in Simion Dascălul's chronicle, which speaks of the counsellors called senatori who sit until the diet, the seim, is over.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts the word named members of foreign councils: those of the diet in Simion Dascălul, the senators of Ragusa, a senator of Russia.^[2] In Transylvania it also rendered the German Ratsherr “town councillor”, as the Lexicon de la Buda and Barcianu show.^[10][11] Today it is above all a member of the Senate, the upper chamber of the Romanian parliament, and DEX 2009 adds the feminine senatoare.^[4]

Timeline

• 1683 – in Dosoftei's Lives of the Saints.^[6]
• 1825 – senatoru in the Lexicon de la Buda, glossed with Latin senator and German Rathsherr.^[10]
• 1870 – senatorŭ, member of a senate, in Costinescu.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A senator, a member of a senat, in ancient Rome or another state.^[4][1]
2. A member of the Senate, the upper chamber of the Romanian parlament; the feminine is senatoare.^[4]

Word family

• senatoare
• senatorial

Related words

• senat

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. senator
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 858
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1005
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. senator
6. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. senator
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1188
8. ^ 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. senat
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ 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. 632
11. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 580
12. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 504