statuie

Forms

statuie f (plural statui)^[1] The older form statuă survives in literary use: Minulescu writes „Tu pari o statuă turnată nu-n bronz etern” “you seem a statue cast not in eternal bronze”.^[2][3] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 spells the headword statue and glosses it with Latin statua.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French statue, with Latin statua named beside it by most dictionaries.^[3][5][2] DEX gives French as the source and compares Latin, the DN adds Italian statua, and Tiktin derives the word from Italian alone.^[6][7][8] Wiktionary calls the word a doublet of the learned statuă, taken directly from Latin.^[1]

The Latin noun comes from statuō (“to set up, cause to stand”).^[9][1][10] The same family gave Romanian statură and the verb statua.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1785.^[8] MDA2 and the DLR start from Petru Maior's Istoria pentru începutul românilor în Dachia, quoted from the Buda printing of 1834: „toate statuele și tăblele” “all the statues and paintings” carried off from Macedonia and Thrace.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense of a sculpture in the round of a person, an animal or an allegorical figure.^[6][3] Early 19th-century writers often add a gloss: Țichindeal explains statua as chipul “the image”, and Gorian as idol.^[2] Familiar speech uses it for praise and irony (a ridica cuiva o statuie “to raise a statue to someone”) and for a beautiful but cold person.^[3][2] In Oltenia it is also recorded, by confusion, in the sense of statură “stature”.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1785 – the first record.^[8]
• 1834 – statuele in the Buda printing of Petru Maior's history.^[3][2]
• 1848 – headword in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A statue: a three-dimensional sculpture of a person, an animal or an allegorical figure, usually set up in the open.^[6][3][1]
2. (familiar, figurative) A beautiful but cold, unfeeling person.^[3][2]
3. (regional) stature, build.^[3][2]

Related words

• statuar
• statură
• Latin statua

Usage notes

A ridica (cuiva) o statuie means to show one's gratitude to someone or, ironically, to praise someone beyond measure, and merită o statuie “he deserves a statue” is said ironically of someone who expects a reward.^[6][3]

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 Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. statuie
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 974
4. ^ 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. statue
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. statuie
6. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 1047
7. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. statuie
8. ^ 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. statuie
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 95