templu

Forms

templu n (plural temple)^[1] The older plural templuri is in the first record: „Templuri, labirinturi... piramide” “temples, labyrinths... pyramids”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French temple, also borrowed from Latin templum (“shrine, temple”), as MDA2, the DLR and DEX give it.^[4][2][5][1] Tiktin and Marcu & Maneca give the Latin word alone.^[3][6] The Latin noun meant first an area marked out for taking the auspices, then a shrine.^[7] The same Latin word survives in tâmplă “iconostasis”, so the two are doublets.^[1] Ciorănescu takes it through Byzantine Greek τέμπλον (témplon).^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Iași newspaper Albina românească of 1829, in a list of ancient monuments: temples, labyrinths and pyramids.^[4][2][3]

Semantic evolution

In 1829 the word also described the ruined vaults of a temple in Rome, and Heliade has the fallen temples of ancestral glory.^[2] Negulici in 1848 defines it as a public building consecrated to God or the gods, a church.^[9] Today it names the place of worship of the ancient peoples and of Jews, Buddhists and others, and a monumental church; in particular the Temple of Jerusalem.^[4][5] Figuratively it is any place held sacred, as in Eminescu's line “I am a temple, you are a god”.^[3][10]

Timeline

• 1829 – templuri in Albina românească, the first record.^[4][2]
• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[9]
• 1871 – in Laurian and Massim's dictionary, with the Latin senses.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A temple: a building consecrated to a deity and used for its worship.^[5][1]
2. The Temple of Jerusalem, the central sanctuary of Jewish worship on Mount Moriah.^[5]
3. A place of prayer; a monumental church.^[4][6]

Related words

• tâmplă
• Latin templum

Usage notes

The plural is temple;^[5][3] templuri is old.^[5][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. templu
3. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. templu
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1198
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1116
6. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. templu
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. tâmplă
9. ^ 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. templu
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 411
11. ^ Laurian, A. T.; Massim, I. C. (1871–1876), Dictionariulu limbei romane, 2 vols., Bucuresci: Noua Typographia a Laboratoriloru Romani, p. s.v. templu