univers

Forms

univers n (plural universuri)^[1] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 prints it in the transitional alphabet as ꙊNIVERS, glossed with Latin universus and mundus.^[2] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 spells it universŭ with the final short vowel of the period.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French univers and directly borrowed from Latin ūniversum (“the whole, the world”), the two sources DEX and the DLR name.^[4][5][6] MDA2 and the DLR add German Universum as a third model, and Marcu & Maneca list Italian universo and English universe beside the French word.^[7][5][8] Tiktin and Scriban give only the Latin word.^[9][10] Romanian lexicography thus treats it as a word with several sources at once.^[8][7]

The Latin noun is the neuter of the adjective ūniversus (“whole, entire”) used as a noun, a compound of ūnus (“one”) and versus (“turned”), the past participle of vertō (“to turn”).^[11][12] In French the noun is recorded from about 1530, in Marot, and the Latin word rendered Ancient Greek τὸ ὅλον (tò hólon, “the whole”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin and MDA2 date the first record to about 1817, in a document printed in the Uricariul collection.^[9][7] The early quotations in the DLR use it for everything that exists, the sun, the stars and the earth together;^[5] Pleșoianu explains that the word means “all that is, or the whole world”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The 19th-century writers used it for the cosmos as a whole, and Eminescu's universul fără margini “the boundless universe” is the DLR's best-known quotation.^[5][13] The sense narrowed to the inhabited earth and its people, as in Eminescu's line about the universe trembling under his step.^[13][9] A figurative use followed: the narrow world, the circle in which someone lives, and a field of activity or thought.^[4][6] Statistics borrowed it for the whole population studied.^[8] MDA2 records the rare old synonym unocuprinzime beside it.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1817 – the first record, in a document of the Uricariul collection.^[9][7]
• 1848 – listed in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[2]
• 1870 – universŭ in Costinescu's dictionary, with “the earth and its inhabitants” as a narrower sense.^[3]
• 1931 – CADE labels it a French loan.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The universe: the world as a whole, everything that exists in space and time; the cosmos.^[4][7][1]
2. (physics) Four-dimensional space-time, whose elements are events.^[4]
3. The globe, the earth, especially its inhabited part, and the people living on it.^[4][7]
4. (figurative) The immediate world or milieu of a person or thing; a material, intellectual or moral domain: Pictorul trăia în universul lui de culori.^[4][6]
5. (statistics) The whole population covered by a statistical survey.^[8]

Related words

• universal
• Latin ūniversum

Usage notes

The plural is universuri.^[4][1]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. univers
3. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 662
4. ^ 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. 1173
5. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. univers
6. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. univers
7. ^ 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, 1378
8. ^ a b c d Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. univers
9. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. univers
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1380
11. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 943
12. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
13. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 584
14. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. univers