transfer

Forms

transfer n (plural transferuri)^[1] The French spelling transfert was used at first: Ibrăileanu writes „acest transfert de concepție” “this transfer of outlook”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French transfert.^{[4][2][3][5][1]} The French noun comes from Latin transferō (“to carry across”), a Latin verb.^[1] Scriban gives the same French source and separates the noun from the verb transfera, which he takes from French transférer.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to the second volume of Arhiva, the journal of the Iași scientific and literary society, which began in 1889.^[2] The DLR quotes that passage, about a mental transfer from one subject to another, so the first sense was a figurative transfer of ideas or feelings.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In law and commerce the word named the passing of a right or a property to another person, and Scriban, who has this sense alone, would have preferred translațiune.^[6] The DLR quotes it in this sense from the historian Oțetea, and also from economic laws.^[3] Psychology and rhetoric used it for the shift of feeling or of a term from one object to another: Vianu calls the transfer of an expression the essence of every metaphor.^[3]

From the 1950s the DLR quotes it for moving a person from one place to another, prisoners among them, and for moving an employee to another workplace, and by metonymy for the document that certifies such a move.^[3][7] Technical senses followed: the transfer of energy between systems, and in chemistry of a radical, ion or electron between substances.^[2][5] In sport it names the move of a professional player from one club to another.^[8]

Timeline

• 1889 or later – first record, in the second volume of the Iași journal Arhiva.^[2]
• 1939 – Scriban records the legal and commercial sense.^[6]
• 1954 – prisoners în transfer to a camp, in Viața românească.^[3]
• 1964 – the transfer paper for a new workplace.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of transferring or being transferred: moving a person or thing from one place to another.^[4][2]
2. The move of an employee from one workplace to another, and the document that certifies it.^[2][3]
3. (law) The conveyance of rights, property or obligations to another person.^[2][5]
4. A transfer of money from one account to another.^[2]
5. (physics, chemistry) The passing of energie from one system to another, or of a radical, ion or electron from one substance to another.^[2]
6. (psychology) The shift of an emotional charge from one object to another.^[2][5]
7. (sport) The move of a professional player to another club.^[8]

Related words

• transfera
• French transfert

Usage notes

The plural is transferuri.^[4] The noun belongs with the verb a transfera and the verbal noun transferare, which MDA2 gives as its synonym in most senses.^[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 k l Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1254
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. transfer
4. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1137
5. ^ a b c d Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. transfer
6. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1337
7. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 472
8. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. transfer