taxă

Forms

taxă f (plural taxe)^[1] Old and popular texts also have taxie (also spelled tacsie, plural taxii or tăxii) and tasă.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French taxe, according to DEX, Wiktionary and the neologism dictionaries.^[3][4][1] MDA2 and Tiktin give a multiple origin: borrowed from German Taxe, borrowed from Medieval Latin taxa and the French word.^[2][5] The French noun was made from the verb taxer, and the German word was taken from the Medieval Latin one in the 15th century.^[1] Behind them is Latin taxō (“to touch; to assess, value”), which Pfeifer explains as an iterative of tangō (“to touch”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1733.^[5] MDA2's first record is a document of before 1766 published by Iorga.^[2] The sense is a sum paid to the authorities.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In 1870 Costinescu still defined the word first as a price fixed by the authorities for goods and produce, then as the legal rate of interest and a levy on persons; Șăineanu also put the fixed price first.^[7][8] MDA2 keeps an obsolete sense “price” and the old taxa capului “poll tax”.^[2]

Today it is a sum paid to the state or an institution for a service or a right, or a levy on goods: taxă vamală “customs duty”, taxa de drum “road tax” and taxa pe valoarea adăugată “value added tax”.^[3][2][9]

Timeline

• 1733 – taxă, the first record.^[5]
• before 1766 – a document published by Iorga.^[2]
• 1870 – a fixed price, a legal interest and a levy in Costinescu's dictionary.^[7]
• 1997 – taxa de drum “road tax”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tax or duty levied on certain goods: taxă vamală “customs duty”;^[3][2][1] taxă pe valoarea adăugată “value added tax”.^[3][2][1]
2. A fee paid to the state or to an institution for a service or a right.^[3][10]
3. (obsolete) A price.^[2]

Related words

• taxa
• French taxe

Usage notes

Taxă with the stress on the first syllable is the noun;^[1] taxă stressed on the last is the simple perfect of the verb taxa, “he taxed”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1163
3. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1105
4. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. taxă
5. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. taxă
6. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
7. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 603
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 644
9. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. taxă
10. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. taxă