stradă

Forms

stradă f (plural străzi)^[1] The old plural strade is still found in Macedonski, Gherea and Eminescu.^[2][3] An older variant strată came from Greek;^[3][4] Barcianu's dictionary of 1886 sends the reader from stradă to stratä.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian strada (“road, street”), a loan of the 19th century, as DER, Tiktin, MDA2 and NODEX have it.^[5][6][3][7] DEX, Marcu's dictionary of neologisms and Wiktionary give borrowed from Modern Greek στράτα (stráta) beside the Italian word, and Scriban derives it from the Greek form, itself from Italian.^{[8][9][1][10]} MDA2 keeps the Greek source for the old variant strată only.^[3]

The Italian word goes back to Late Latin strāta (“paved road”), with the voicing of /t/ typical of northern Italy, and Latin had it as a shortening of via strāta (“paved road”).^[11][1] The Latin word is the feminine of the participle of sternō (“to spread out, to pave”).^[11][1][12] The Greek word was borrowed from the same Latin form.^[13] The REW notes that the Latin word spread to every Romance language except Romanian, where it was not inherited: French estrée, Spanish estrada and Portuguese estrada.^[14][11] Romanian strat and estradă belong to the same Latin family.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is Negulici's dictionary of 1848, which glosses the new word with the native uliță.^[6][15] MDA2 dates it from a handbook of domestic medicine translated in 1852.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century stradă was a town word beside the native uliță, and Șăineanu still explained it by uliță in 1929.^[15][16] Scriban described it as a road inside a town and noted that streets running on out of a town were called căi.^[10] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 mixed it up with French estrade and also gave the sense “raised platform in a room”.^[17]

From the street itself the word came to mean the people who live on it, and in phrases the street as a place: de stradă “happening in the street; worn in the street” and, of a woman, “of loose morals”.^[8][3] NODEX adds a figurative sense: the street as a setting outside the influence of family and school.^[7] A regional use names the gaps between the combs of a beehive, where the bees work.^[3]

Timeline

• 1848 – stradă in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms, the first record.^[6][15]
• 1852 – in a Romanian translation of Raspail's manual of domestic medicine.^[3]
• 1870 – in Costinescu's dictionary, glossed “paved street” and “raised platform”.^[17]
• 1886 – Barcianu's dictionary refers stradă to the variant stratä.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A street: a paved or asphalted road inside a town or village, lined with pavements and houses.^[8][1]
2. The people living in a street: Toată strada a venit la nuntă “The whole street came to the wedding”.^[8][2]
3. (figurative) The street as a milieu outside the influence of family and society.^[7]
4. (regional) The space between the combs of a beehive.^[3]

Word family

• stradelă

Related words

• strat
• estradă
• stradal
• uliță
• Italian strada

Usage notes

Common phrases are omul de pe stradă “the man in the street, an ordinary person” and a arunca pe cineva în stradă “to throw someone out of their home; to strip someone of everything”.^[8][3] The plural is străzi;^[8] strade is old.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 246
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, 997
4. ^ a b c Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 611
5. ^ 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. stradă
6. ^ 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. stradă
7. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. stradă
8. ^ 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. 1055
9. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. stradă
10. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1247
11. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 165
13. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1399
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8291
15. ^ a b c 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. stradă
16. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 618
17. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 562