toaletă

Forms

toaletă f (plural toalete)^[1] Older and regional forms include tualetă, taoletă, tauletă and dotaletă and the neuter toalet, tualet.^[2] Alecsandri writes tualetă: „să se apuce de tualetă încă cu ziuă” “to start on her toilette while it is still daylight”.^[3] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 spells it toalettă.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French toilette, one of the French loans of the 19th century.^[5][6][7][1] The neuter forms ⟨toalet⟩ and ⟨tualet⟩ come from Russian туалет (tualet), and MDA2 names Russian beside French for the word itself.^[3][2]

The French word is a diminutive, from French toile + -ette, the noun for “cloth” going back to Latin tēla (“web, cloth”).^[1][8] It first meant a small cloth spread on the table before the mirror.^[9] Romanian has the Latin word by inheritance as teară.^[8]

South of the Danube the word is Aromanian duvalete, borrowed through Modern Greek ντουβαλέττα (ntouvalétta).^[7][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1825, in Mumuleanu: „A doua zi apoi fac Toaleta cum le plac” “the next day then they do their toilette as they please”.^[6][3] The sense is “dressing and grooming oneself”.^[3] MDA2's first record is a newspaper of 1838.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Costinescu (1870) still describes the older French sense: a lace cloth spread on a small table for the things needed to dress, the table loaded with them, a dressing room (cabinet de toaletă), and a person's whole attire.^[4] The phrase de toaletă “for washing and grooming” occurs in 1830 in an advertisement for a set of objects “for the toilette” set with precious stones.^[3]

From the clothes worn, the word came to mean a woman's whole outfit and then a dress.^[5][2] Scriban (1939) notes that cabinet de toaletă was sometimes used as a euphemism for a privy.^[8] The sense “toilet, lavatory” is now one of the main senses in the dictionaries.^[5][12] Medicine uses the word for cleaning a wound or the area to be operated on.^[13] Older phrases included preparing a condemned man for execution, by cutting his hair and changing his clothes.^[2]

Timeline

• 1825 – toaleta “one's toilette” in Mumuleanu, the first record.^[6][3]
• 1830 – lucruri pentru toaletă “toilet articles” in an advertisement.^[3]
• 1838 – the word in a newspaper, MDA2's first record.^[2]
• 1870 – toalettă “dressing table cloth; dressing; attire” in Costinescu's dictionary.^[4]
• 1939 – the euphemistic use for a privy, noted by Scriban.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of washing, combing and dressing oneself; grooming;^[14] a-și face toaleta “to get washed and dressed”.^[5][2]
2. A toilet, a room with a lavatory and washbasin.^[5][14]
3. A woman's whole outfit of clothes and ornaments; in a narrower sense, a dress.^[5][2]
4. A dressing table with a mirror and small drawers and shelves for the things needed to care for the face and hair.^[5]
5. (medicine) The cleaning of a wound or of the area to be operated on.^[13][2]

Related words

• teară
• Aromanian duvalete

Usage notes

The phrase de toaletă means “for washing and caring for the body”: săpun de toaletă “toilet soap”.^[5][2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1231
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. toaletă
4. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 620
5. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1128
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. toaletă
7. ^ a b 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. toaletă
8. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1326
9. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
10. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 232
11. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 422
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. toaletă
13. ^ a b Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. toaletă
14. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. toaletă