toxic

Forms

toxic m or n (feminine singular toxică, masculine plural toxici, feminine/neuter plural toxice)^[1] Older dictionaries also have a feminine noun toxică “poison” (the Lexicon de la Buda, Cihac) and an adjective tosic, also spelled tossic.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French toxique, as DEX and the DILF give it.^[4][5][1] MDA2, the DLR and NODEX give Latin toxicum (“poison”) and Italian tossico beside the French word, Marcu names toxicus, and Gabinschi calls it an international word that came through Latin from Greek.^{[3][2][6][7][8]} The Latin noun is from Ancient Greek τοξικόν (toxikón, “poison for arrows”), short for τοξικὸν φάρμακον (toxikòn phármakon), from τοξικός (toxikós, “of the bow”), from τόξον (tóxon, “bow”).^[1][9][10] The DHLF reports the view that the Greek word for “bow” is a loan from an Iranian language, perhaps Scythian.^[11]

The same Latin word survives as the inherited toapsec “poison”, recorded rarely from the 17th century, and in Aromanian toapsec.^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to 1822, in Bobb's Romanian–Latin–Hungarian dictionary, as a noun meaning “poison”.^[3][2] In 1870 Costinescu still noted that the noun was used only by scholars.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The noun “poison” came first in the dictionaries; the adjective “poisonous” is quoted in the DLR from a health manual and in Barcianu's dictionary, and it became the common use in medicine and chemistry, as in Babeș and Marinescu.^[2] In French, too, the adjective (1584) was rare until the mid-19th century.^[11] The noun is now rare: DEX and the DLRLC give it as a second or rare use.^[4][15] Caragiale used it of products made by ferments: „fermenții cei mai dulci pot produce toxice primejdioase” “the sweetest ferments can produce dangerous poisons”.^[2]

Timeline

• 1213 – French toxique, the learned form, replacing earlier altered forms.^[11]
• 1822 – toxic “poison” in Bobb's dictionary, the first Romanian record.^[3]
• 1825 – the noun toxică in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[2]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary: a scholars' word.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. That can poison or intoxicate; poisonous: gaze toxice.^[4][3]

Noun

1. (rare) A poison.^[4][15]

Related words

• toapsec
• intoxica
• otravă

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. toxic
3. ^ 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, 1246
4. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1134
5. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
8. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1333
11. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ 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. toapsec
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8818
14. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci
15. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne