voce

Forms

voce f (plural voci)^[1] An older and regional form is voace: „Îmi îngroș voacea, îmi încordez atitudinea” “I deepen my voice, I stiffen my bearing”.^[2][3] Regional forms with b- are boce and boace.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vōx (“voice”), a learned loan of the 19th century.^[4][3][5][1] Tiktin names New Latin and Italian voce as its sources, and NODEX names Latin and Italian.^[6][7] The DLR compares French voix.^[2] The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *wṓkʷs (“speech, voice”).^[1][8]

The same Latin word was also inherited: it gave the regional boace "voice, speech", and Aromanian boațe.^{[4][6][9][10]} Ciorănescu therefore calls ⟨voce⟩ a doublet of ⟨boace⟩.^[4] The REW lists the verb boci "to wail" with them.^[10] Graur treats ⟨boci⟩ as formed in Romanian.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1812, in Șincai's chronicle, which still has the Latin form vox.^[6] MDA2's first record, also the DLR's first quotation, is Laurian's translation of a French manual of philosophy, printed in 1846: „Ea reprezentează numai sonul vocii, care însuși exprime cugetarea” “it represents only the sound of the voice, which itself expresses thought”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The neologism soon spread beside the native glas and grai.^[2] Dictionaries of the 1860s and 1870s add the senses of a singing voice and its part in music, a vote ("a-și da vocea"), and an opinion or wish.^[11][12] They also have figurative senses such as vocea naturii "the voice of nature" and vocea conștiinței "the voice of conscience".^[12] In grammar it came to mean the voice of a verb, vocea activă and vocea pasivă.^[13][14]

The voting sense has gone, and today the word means the voice and the singing voice.^[5] The older plural voce occurs in Bolliac.^[2] The inherited boace is not recorded until 1886, in Marian's collection of folk charms.^[15][16]

Timeline

• c. 1812 – vox in Șincai's chronicle, the first record.^[6]
• 1846 – vocii in Laurian's translation of a manual of philosophy.^[3][2]
• 1862 – Pontbriant's dictionary also gives “wish, opinion”.^[11]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary also gives “vote” and the grammatical sense.^[12]
• 1886 – the inherited boace in Marian's folk charms.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. voice: the human ability to utter speech sounds, and the sounds made by the vocal cords: A vorbit cu o voce obosită.^[5][3][1]
2. The gift of singing well.^[5]
3. A register of musical notes in which someone can sing: voce de tenor.^[5][14]
4. The melodic line given to each instrument or singer in a composition.^[5][7]
5. (grammar) The voice of a verb: vocea activă, vocea pasivă.^[13][14]

Related words

• boace
• boci
• vocal
• vocală
• vocabular
• Aromanian boațe
• Latin vōx

Usage notes

A ridica vocea means “to speak sharply, to raise one's voice”.^[5] Cu jumătate de voce means “in a whisper” or “hesitantly”, and într-o voce “all together, unanimously”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. voce
3. ^ 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, 1503
4. ^ a b c 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. voce
5. ^ 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. 1204
6. ^ 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. vóce
7. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. voce
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 203
10. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9459
11. ^ a b Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 785
12. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 706
13. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 700
14. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1417
15. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 219
16. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. boáce