vagon

Forms

vagon n (plural vagoane)^[1] Older texts spell it wagon, after the French.^[2] Regional speech has văgon, and Ciorănescu records a popular vargon.^[2][3] Besides the plural vagoane, a rare vagonuri occurs.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French wagon (“railway car”).^{[4][5][6][3][1]} MDA2 and DLR name borrowed from German Waggon as a further source, beside the French spelling vagon, and DN adds English wagon.^[2][7][8]

The French word was taken from the English one, first recorded in French in 1698, then with ⟨v⟩ in 1826 and with ⟨w⟩ in 1829, in the vocabulary of the mines and the first railways.^[9] The English word comes from Middle Dutch waghen, related to German Wagen.^[9][10] The German railway term was itself borrowed from English in the early 19th century and later took a French pronunciation.^[11][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Romanian translation of Hippolyte Sonnet's elements of algebra, printed in Bucharest in 1852, in a sum about a train of carriages: „Un convoi de vagoane pleacă de la Paris la Tours” “a train of carriages leaves Paris for Tours”.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

Early writers explained the new word: Barasch glossed vagoane with trăsuri “carriages”, and a calendar of 1856 explained tren as „șir de vagoane” “a row of carriages”.^[7] From the carriage itself the word came to mean the load it holds, a unit of measure for grain, timber and other goods.^[4][5] Compounds name kinds of cars, vagon de dormit “sleeping car”, a calque of French wagon-lit, and vagon-restaurant “dining car”; a casă vagon is a house whose rooms open one after another, like the cars of a train.^[4][12] In slang vagon means “a great quantity”.^[13]

Timeline

• 1852 – vagoane in the translation of Sonnet's algebra, the first record.^[2][7]
• 1856 – „tren (șir de vagoane)” in a calendar.^[7]
• 1893–1895 – vagon in Damé's dictionary.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A railway car: a large vehicle, with or without its own engine, that runs on rails and carries passengers or goods: vagon de dormit “sleeping car”, vagon-restaurant “dining car”.^[4][2]
2. A wagonload: the quantity of goods that fills such a car, used as a unit of measure.^[4][5]
3. (slang) A great quantity, plenty.^[13]

Word family

• vagonet

Related words

• tren

Usage notes

Casă vagon or sistem vagon is a house whose rooms open into one another in a row.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 1406
3. ^ 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. vagon
4. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1181
5. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
6. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria
7. ^ 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. vagon
8. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
11. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
12. ^ Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas
13. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu
14. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État