telefona

Forms

telefona (present telefonez, third-person singular telefonează, past participle telefonat), 1st conjugation.^[1][2] The DLR records a regional variant of the fourth conjugation, telefoni.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French téléphoner (“to telephone”).^{[2][4][5][3][1]} It is in turn from French téléphone with the verb suffix -er.^[1] Within Romanian it can also be analysed as telefon with the verb ending -a.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Damé's Romanian–French dictionary of 1893–1895, which glosses it with French téléphoner.^[4][6] The noun telefon is recorded from 1875.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

The DLR records the verb in the dictionaries of Damé, Barcianu and Alexi, then in the prose of Camil Petrescu, Arghezi and Călinescu.^[3] Șăineanu glossed it in 1929 as “to send by telephone”.^[8] It is used both intransitively, “to speak on the telephone”, and transitively, “to tell by telephone” or “to call someone”.^[2][9] The impersonal reflexive i se telefonase “someone had phoned him” is quoted from the 1970s.^[3]

Timeline

• 1875 – the noun telefon.^[4]
• 1893–1895 – the verb in Damé's dictionary, the first record.^[4][6]
• 1929 – Șăineanu's dictionary: “to send by telephone”.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To telephone, to speak with someone by telephone: Ți-am telefonat aseară, dar nu ai răspuns.^[2][4]
2. (transitive) To call someone to the telephone; to pass on a message by telephone.^[4][9]

Related words

• telefon

Usage notes

The present tense is telefonez.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1114
3. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. telefona
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1192
5. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. telefona
6. ^ a b Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. telefona
7. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. telefon
8. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 646
9. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. telefona