vestă

Forms

vestă f (plural veste)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French veste, the source DEX and DILF name.^[2][3] NODEX and MDA2 give a second source, borrowed from German Weste, which Șăineanu names alone.^[4][5][6] Borcia lists it among the German loans of Transylvania and Bukovina.^[7] Marcu and Maneca add Italian vesta.^[8]

The German word was borrowed from French in the 17th century.^[9][10] The French word comes from veste (“garment”), from Latin vestis (“clothing”).^[11][10][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is in Dinicu Golescu's notes of his journeys of 1824–1826, as the sleeveless garment worn under the coat.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In German the word first named a sleeved jacket worn under the coat and passed to the sleeveless waistcoat in the late 18th century.^[10] Romanian took the waistcoat sense;^[5][12] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 refers it to giletă.^[5][12] The garment is now worn by men under the jacket and by women over the blouse.^[2] Rarer senses are “pullover” and “jacket”, and compounds such as vestă de salvare “life jacket” name other sleeveless garments.^[5][13]

Timeline

• 1826 – first record, in Dinicu Golescu's travel notes.^[5]
• 1870 – in Costinescu's dictionary.^[12]
• 1903 – Borcia records it as a German loan in Transylvania and Bukovina.^[7]
• 1967 – vestă-frigider “cooled vest” for workers.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A waistcoat, a vest: a short garment without sleeves or collar, worn by men under the jacket and by women over the blouse.^[2][5][1]
2. (rare) A pullover; a jacket.^[5]
3. A sleeveless protective garment: vestă de salvare “life jacket”, vestă antiglonț “bulletproof vest”.^[13]

Usage notes

The idiom a avea pe cineva în buzunarul de la vestă means “to have someone in one's pocket, in one's power”.^[5][13] Regional synonyms are jiletcă and prusluc.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1195
3. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria, p. s.v. vestă
4. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. vestă
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1465
6. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 694
7. ^ a b Borcia, Ioan (1903–1904), Deutsche Sprachelemente im Rumänischen, Leipzig (in Weigand, Zehnter Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig), p. 81
8. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. vestă
9. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
10. ^ a b c Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 693
13. ^ a b c Dima, Eugenia (coord.) (2007), Dicționar explicativ ilustrat al limbii române, Chișinău: Arc / Gunivas, p. s.v. vestă
14. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. vestă