tortură

Forms

tortură f (plural torturi)^[1] Besides the plural torturi, an old plural torture occurs in Hasdeu.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French torture and directly borrowed from Late Latin tortūra: MDA2, DEX and MDN name both sources, and Tiktin takes it from Latin, partly through other languages.^[3][4][5][6] Wiktionary has the Latin word come through French.^[1] DN compares Italian tortura as well.^[7]

The French noun continues the Late Latin word, which meant “twisting” and, from the 4th century, “suffering”.^[8] The Latin noun is formed on torqueō (“to twist; to torture”) with the suffix -tūra.^[1][9] The past participle tortus of the same verb gave the inherited tort (“spun thread”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1793.^[6] MDA2 quotes it first from Șincai's Hronic, which it cites in the edition of 1853, with the sense “torment to which the condemned were subjected”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Early dictionaries define it as the torments to which justice once subjected criminals, or even a mere suspect, to force a confession, and figuratively as great physical or moral suffering.^[11] Costinescu (1870) adds the figurative senses “gnawing worry” and “anxiety”.^[12] MDA2 also records the obsolete sense “instrument of torture” and the figurative “mangling” of words or verse, as in Gherea's tortura versului “the torture of verse”.^[3][2]

The verb tortura is a separate loan from torturer, recorded from 1857.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1793 – first record, as dated by Tiktin.^[6]
• 1857 – the verb tortura.^[13]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary gives the figurative senses.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. torture: violent physical suffering inflicted on someone; caznă, chin.^[4][3][1]
2. Violent moral or mental suffering, torment.^[4][3]
3. (obsolete) An instrument of torture.^[3]
4. (figurative) The mangling of words, verse or style.^[3]

Related words

• tortura
• tort

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 458
3. ^ 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, 1245
4. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1133
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. tortură
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. tortură
7. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. tortură
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1332
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8809
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 659
12. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 625
13. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1244
14. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. tortura