server

Forms

server n (plural servere)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English server, a term of computing that keeps the English spelling.^[2][3][4][1] The English word goes back to Middle English servere.^[1] In Romanian it is a neuter noun with the plural ⟨servere⟩, and MDA2 gives the pronunciation ⟨servăr⟩.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dimitrescu's dictionary of recent words quotes it first from a newspaper of 20 September 1997, which had taken a picture from a server on the Internet.^[4] The sense is a computer that serves the others in a network.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is a computer that offers services, such as access to databases, programs and peripherals, to the other computers of a network.^[4][2] From 2005 the press also used it for a program that serves other applications, as in mail servers.^[4] MDA2 adds the sense of a public or private body that runs an information system and lets users consult its databases, and by extension an information system itself.^[3]

Timeline

• 1997 – server “network computer” in a newspaper, the first dated record.^[4]
• 2002 – the plural serverelor in a report on IBM's share of the market.^[4]
• 2005 – servere de mail “mail servers”, the sense of a program.^[4]
• 2009 – DEX 2009 records it as a term of computing.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (computing) A server: a computer or program that connects the users of a network to a central resource or database.^[2][3][4]
2. (computing) A body, public or private, that runs an information system and lets users consult its databases; by extension, an information system.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1009
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, 865
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)