viteză

Forms

viteză f (plural viteze)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French vitesse (“speed”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The French word is from Old French vistece, from vite (“quick”) and the suffix -esse.^[1]

The Romanian ending is irregular: DER thinks the word was probably drawn into the group of sinteză, ipoteză and proteză, and notes that the purists' efforts to impose the variant vitesă failed.^[2] Scriban, who called it a barbarism, held that it should have become ⟨viteță⟩, like fineță.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is Protopopescu and Popescu's dictionary of new and foreign words of 1862, with the sense “speed of movement”; the DLR cites the same dictionary first, then Costinescu (1870).^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word meant “quickness of movement” and in physics became the ratio of distance to time, then the rate of any process.^[4][7] With the motor car it came to name each of a vehicle's gears.^[4][1] The railway used mare viteză and mică viteză for fast and ordinary freight service.^[8] MDA2 records beția vitezei “the thrill of speed” and epoca vitezei, a name for the 20th century.^[3] In drug slang viteză is methamphetamine.^[9] The noun vitezist “sprinter” is recent.^[10]

Timeline

• 1862 – in Protopopescu and Popescu's dictionary, the first record.^[3][5]
• 1870 – in Costinescu's dictionary.^[5][11]
• 1984 – vitezist, of a Steaua footballer, in the sports press.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. speed, quickness of movement: în (plină) viteză “at (full) speed”, dă-i viteză! “get a move on!”, and (colloquial) a băga pe cineva în viteză “to make someone get a move on”.^[4][3]
2. (physics) The ratio of the distance travelled to the time taken, a velocity; the ratio of the change in a quantity to the time it takes.^[4]
3. (specifically) The rate at which a process repeats or takes place: viteză de sedimentare “sedimentation rate”.^[4]
4. A gear of a vehicle: A schimbat în viteza a treia. “He changed into third gear.”^[4][1]
5. (slang) Methamphetamine.^[9]

Word family

• vitezoman
• vitezometru
• vitezist

Related words

• French vitesse

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. viteză
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1493
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. 1202
5. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. viteză
6. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1411
7. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. viteză
8. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 673
9. ^ a b Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. viteză
10. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE)
11. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. s.v. viteză