sex

Forms

sex n (plural sexe or sexuri)^[1] The old plural is sexuri: „Instrucție egală și întreagă pentru tot românul de amândouă sexurile” “equal and complete schooling for every Romanian of both sexes” (1848).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French sexe, at the same time borrowed from Latin sexus, one of the learned words of the 19th century.^[4][3] DEX, MDA2, the DLR and Tiktin give both sources, while Scriban and Wiktionary name only Latin, and DER only French.^{[4][3][2][5][6][1][7]} The French word was itself remade in the 13th century after the Latin one, from the older ses.^[8]

The origin of the Latin word is unclear: it has often been linked with secō (“to cut”), as a “division” of a species into male and female, but the formation is obscure.^[9][10][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the word from a text of 1828, and MDA2 from Episcupescu's Practica doctorului de casă of 1846.^[5][3] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 defines it as the physical difference between male and female.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant the set of features that distinguish male from female, and each of the two groups so distinguished; the 19th-century quotations are mostly about people “of both sexes”.^[2][3] Joking collective phrases followed: sexul tare “the stronger sex” for men, sexul slab or frumos “the weaker, the fair sex” for women.^[6][4] Old texts also used it for grammatical gender.^[3]

MDA2 records the senses “genital organ” and, as rare, “sexual activity”.^[3] The sense “sexual intercourse” is now common, and Volceanov's slang dictionary gives it as “sexual act; sex life”.^[12][1] Compounds after English, such as sex-shop, came in from the 1970s.^[13]

Timeline

• 1828 – sex in a text cited by Tiktin, the first record.^[5]
• 1846 – in Episcupescu's Practica doctorului de casă.^[3]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[11]
• 1970 – sex-club in the press.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. sex: the features of body and function that divide living beings into male and female.^[4][1]
2. Each of the two groups so divided: men or women, males or females: sexul tare “men”, sexul slab or frumos “women”.^[4][14]
3. The genitals.^[3]
4. sexual intercourse; sex life.^[12][1]

Word family

• sexual
• sexualitate
• sexapil

Related words

• Latin sexus

Usage notes

The plural is sexe, also sexuri.^[4] A separate learned element sex- or sexa- “six” comes from French sexa- and Latin sex (“six”).^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. sex
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 867
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1010
5. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sex
6. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1192
7. ^ 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. sex
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. sex
12. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. sex
13. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. sex
14. ^ 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. 2
15. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. sex