vilă

Forms

vilă f (plural vile)^[1]

Etymology

It is a neologism, borrowed from French villa, with Italian villa and Latin villa named beside it by the dictionaries.^[2][3][4][1] MDA2 and NODEX give French and Latin.^[5][6] Scriban took the word from Latin.^[7]

The French word was taken from Italian in 1743, first for a rich country house in Italy.^[8] The Italian word continues the Latin one, “country house, farm”, which also became French ville (“town”).^[9][8] The Latin word is probably a derivative of the root of vīcus (“village”).^[10][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a periodical of 1838, which reports that Prince Metternich moved from the city to his villa, explained in brackets as a summer palace.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word came in as a foreign term that writers explained, vila (palat de vară) “the villa (summer palace)”, and MDA2 records an old spelling villa.^[3][5] Barcianu's dictionary of 1886 glosses it “country house”, and the DLRLC quotes Vlahuță and Coșbuc for elegant houses among trees, outside a town centre or at a spa.^[11][12][7] Historians use it for the rural estates of Roman landowners and for several kinds of medieval settlement.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 1838 – vila “summer palace” in a periodical, the first record.^[3][5]
• 1886 – Barcianu glosses it with German Landhaus.^[11]
• 1929 – an elegant country or suburban house.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A villa: a spacious, elegant house in a garden, used as a home or for holiday guests.^[2][5][1]
2. (history) In the Roman Empire, a country estate of the great landowners.^[2][5]
3. (history) In the Middle Ages, a name for several kinds of settlement: the village community, a free or dependent village, sometimes a town.^[2][15]

Related words

• vilegiatură
• Latin villa

Usage notes

A second vilă in MDA2 and the DLR is only a variant of viră.^[5][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1198
3. ^ 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. vilă
4. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
5. ^ 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, 1480
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional
7. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1406
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. 692
12. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 661
13. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
14. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 697
15. ^ Costăchescu, Adriana; Dincă, Daniela; Dragoste, Ramona; Popescu, Mihaela; Scurtu, Gabriela (2009–2010), Dicționar de împrumuturi lexicale din limba franceză (DILF), 2 vols., Craiova: Universitaria