trăgător

Forms

trăgător m (plural trăgători)^[1] As an adjective it has the feminine trăgătoare and the plurals trăgători and trăgătoare.^[1] Old texts also have trăgătoriu: Moxa compares putting down his pen to the rest of „un trăgătoriu vânsla” “a rower at the oar”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian trage + -ător, the agent and instrument suffix, on the verb “to pull, draw; to shoot”.^[4][5][3][1] Ciorănescu lists it among the derivatives of trage, which continues trahō (“to drag, draw”).^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1560, in the Apostol of popa Bratu, after an article of Corneliu Dimitriu.^[2] MDA2 and the DLR give the Bucharest Bible of 1688, where the word means a draught animal: Moses set his wife and children „pe trăgători” “on beasts of burden” (Exodus 4:20).^[3][4][8]

Semantic evolution

The oldest uses are agricultural: an ox or horse trained to pull, vite trăgătoare, and as a noun the draught animal itself, as in the folk wish Boii mei trăgători, iar ai dușmanului gemători “may my oxen pull and my enemy's groan”.^[2][4] In the old language it could also mean “attractive, alluring”, and Moxa uses trăgătoriu for a rower.^[3][2]

With firearms the sense “one who shoots” came forward: Costinescu (1870) gives it first, glossing French tirailleur and tireur, and Scriban explains the military în trăgători, soldiers spread out at intervals so as not to offer a compact target.^[9][10] Commerce added “drawer of a bill of exchange” (Tiktin's Trassant), and the puppet theatre trăgător de sfori “string-puller”, used figuratively for a schemer.^[2][5]

Timeline

• c. 1560 – first record, in the Apostol of popa Bratu.^[2]
• 1688 – trăgători “draught animals” in the Bucharest Bible.^[3][8]
• 1870 – Costinescu lists the sense “shooter, marksman” first.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of animals: used for pulling; draught, working: vite trăgătoare.^[5][3][1]
2. (obsolete) attractive, alluring; atrăgător.^[3][4]

Noun

1. A draught animal, an ox or horse that pulls.^[3][2]
2. A person who pulls something;^[5][3] trăgător de sfori: a puppeteer who works the strings of marionettes, and figuratively a schemer.^[5][3]
3. A person, especially a soldier, who fires a weapon; a marksman, shooter; trăgaci;^[5][1] (dated, military) în trăgători: in a line, one after the other.^[5][1]
4. The drawer of a bill of exchange.^[5][2]
5. A wire-drawer, a worker who draws metal into wire; trefilator.^[3][1]

Related words

• trăgaci
• atrăgător
• tragere

Usage notes

The feminine trăgătoare is also a noun for things that pull: the stirrup leather, a strap once used for flogging, and a bootjack; the neuter plural trăgătoare belongs to the ruling pen used to draw lines in ink.^[5][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. trăgător
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1263
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. trăgător
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1141
6. ^ 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. trage
7. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 285
8. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Exodus 4:20
9. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 627
10. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1341