soldat

Forms

soldat m (plural soldați)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French soldat, a loan with several models: French, Italian soldato and German Soldat in DEX and DN,^[2][3] French and German in MDN,^[4] and Russian солдат (soldat), French and Italian in DLR and MDA2.^[5][6] Tiktin derives it from Italian, partly through other languages,^[7] and Scriban from French, itself from Italian; he takes the popular form saldat from the Russian pronunciation.^[8] The old forms săldat and săldaț that MDA2 lists point the same way.^[6]

The Italian word is the noun use of the past participle of Old Italian soldare (“to take into pay”), from soldo (“coin, pay”), which goes back to Late Latin solidus “a coin”: the soldier was “the one in pay”.^[9][10][11] French took it from Italian in 1475 and German in the early 16th century.^[11][12][13] Graur groups it with solda, sold, suda and solid, the other Romanian descendants of the Latin family.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Ion Neculce's chronicle of Moldavia (c. 1743), in the old form săldați “soldiers”, in an account of troops charging the janissaries.^[6][5] Tiktin's first dated record is of 1782.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th and early 19th centuries the word named a soldier of any rank in a regular army;^[2][6] DLR quotes it from Maior, Budai-Deleanu's lexicon and the calendars printed at Buda.^[5] The modern language narrowed it to a soldier without rank, or of the lowest rank, and to a man doing his military service.^[2][6] MDA2 and DN add the figurative sense “fighter for a cause”, and MDA2 the toy soldat de plumb “tin soldier”.^[6][3] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 defines it as a man in the pay of the state.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1743 – săldați “soldiers” in Neculce's chronicle, the first record.^[6][5]
• 1782 – the first record Tiktin dates.^[7]
• 1870 – Costinescu defines soldatŭ as a man in the pay of the state.^[15]
• 1975 – soldat “settled, with no balance” (of accounts), a separate word formed on solda, first recorded in DEX.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A soldier without rank, or with the lowest rank in an army; by extension, any serviceman, especially one doing his military service.^[2][6]
2. (figurative) A fighter or militant for a cause or an idea: un soldat al păcii “a soldier of peace”.^[2][16]
3. soldat de plumb: a tin soldier, a toy figure of a soldier.^[6]

Related words

• solda
• sold
• Italian soldato

Usage notes

DEX has a second headword soldat, numbered soldat¹ there, an adjective that means settled, with no balance left, of an account, and put on sale, of goods.^[2] It is the participle of solda and is first recorded in DEX 1975.^[2][6] The children's game de-a soldații “playing soldiers” is a set phrase.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1031
3. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. soldat
4. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. soldat
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. soldat
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 927
7. ^ 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. soldat
8. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1219
9. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
13. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 856
14. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 93
15. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 531
16. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 168