traseu

Forms

traseu n (plural trasee)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French tracé (“layout, line”),^[2][3][4][1] the noun use of the participle of tracer (“to trace, lay out”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Ion Ghica's Scrisori către V. Alecsandri (1887 edition), where an engineer is invited to continue the line as far as the obor to complete a ring around the town, in the technical sense of the course of a work laid out on a plan.^[3][5] Șăineanu still defined it as the drawing of the outlines of a design or a plan.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From the line of a road, railway or canal on a plan the word passed to the road itself and then to the route a vehicle or a traveller follows, the main sense today.^[2][3][7] Sport took it for the marked course of a race, and physics for the path of a moving body.^[2][8] Graur noticed a local development at Constanța: in 1959 the single trolleybus line was the traseu; when the line was extended to Mamaia in 1960, only the old part kept the name, and by 1961 traseu had become the name of that part's final stop, so that people said cobor la traseu “I get off at the traseu”.^[9] In 1965 the press used the compound traseu-școală for a route of driving schools.^[10]

Timeline

• 1887 – the line of a ring around the town in Ion Ghica's Scrisori.^[3][5]
• 1929 – Șăineanu's sense “outline of a drawing or plan”.^[6]
• 1959–1961 – the shift to the name of a trolleybus stop at Constanța.^[9]
• 1965 – traseu-școală “driving-school route” in the press.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A route that a vehicle or a person travels, especially regularly.^[2][1]
2. The line or direction of a road, railway, canal and the like.^[2][4]
3. The projection on a horizontal plane of the main axis of a road, railway or other engineering work.^[3][8]
4. (sports) the marked course that competitors must cover.^[2]
5. The path of a body moving in space; a trajectory.^[2][8]

Usage notes

The plural is trasee;^[3][4] traseuri is old.^[3][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1140
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1260
4. ^ a b c d Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. traseu
5. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. traseu
6. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 664
7. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 477
8. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. traseu
9. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1963), Etimologii romînești, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. s.v. traseu
10. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. traseu