tren

Forms

tren n (plural trenuri)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French train, a 19th-century loan.^{[2][3][4][5][1][6]} The French noun goes back to the verb Old French trahiner (“to pull, drag”), the ancestor of traîner.^[1][6]

The same French word spread through the Balkans: Ciorănescu compares the Greek, Turkish and Bulgarian forms, and derives the Aromanian form, tren, from Greek.^[5] Papahagi gives the Aromanian word a French or Italian source.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from Constantin Negruzzi in 1855: „să te sui în cel întâi tren” “get on the first train”.^[4][8] MDA2 dates the same passage 1872, the year of an edition of Negruzzi's writings.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Before the railway sense took hold, Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 defined tren or train as a retinue, a line of horses, carriages or servants, as in French.^[9] Barcianu's dictionary of 1886 has only the railway train.^[10] The army used it for a supply convoy and for the corps of troops in charge of the baggage.^[11][6][3] Technical language extended it to a set of devices working together, as in tren de aterizare “landing gear”.^[2][12]

The expression a scăpa or a pierde trenul “to miss the train” means to miss a chance.^[2][3] In the slang of the underworld tren is a police raid.^[13] The language of the 19th century also called the train car de foc “fire cart”, and regional speech has mașină.^[3][8]

Timeline

• 1855 – tren “railway train” in Constantin Negruzzi, the first record.^[4]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary has tren “retinue, line of horses and carriages”.^[9]
• 1886 – Barcianu's dictionary has the railway train only.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A train: a line of railway carriages coupled together and drawn by a locomotivă;^[1] tren subteran “underground train, metro”.^[2][3][1]
2. A convoy of vehicles forming one transport unit;^[12] (dated, military) tren de luptă, a convoy carrying ammunition to the front line.^[2][3]
3. (technical) A set of devices or machine tools that work together: tren de aterizare “landing gear”, tren de roți “gear train”.^[2][12]
4. (slang) A police raid.^[13]

Word family

• trenuleț
• trenuț

Usage notes

The plural is trenuri.^[2] MDA2 records a popular form trin.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. 1144
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, 1273
4. ^ 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. tren
5. ^ a b 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. tren
6. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1344
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1046
8. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. tren
9. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 639
10. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 657
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 665
12. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. tren
13. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. tren