The ETYMOLOGY OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS IN THE ROMANIAN LANGUAGE DICTIONARIES

Abstract

The author ascertains that in „Dicţionarul limbii române” (The Romanian Language Dictionary), drawn up under the patronage of the Romanian Academy and published between 1913 and 2005, there is a lack of consistency in indicating the etymology of various set phrases and especially those that are loan translations of phrases from different foreign languages. Although sometimes the indications
regarding the loans are written down, there are instances when such explanations are not available, both in the case of collocations such as cu s‚nge rece (“sang froid”, literally “cold blood”), război rece (“Cold War”), and “cultivated” phrases, such as a se lupta cu morile de v‚nt (“to tilt at windmills”), a-i arunca cuiva mănuşa (“to throw down the gauntlet to smb.”) etc. Our paper proposes a uniform lexicographic
treatment, which presupposes the generalization of the etymology indications, both for loans and metaphorical creations of Romanian origin. Three important and necessary research tools are suggested for this purpose in the new edition of the “Thesaurus Dictionary”, edited by the Romanian Academy: a historic-etymological dictionary of idiomatic expressions, a dictionary of phraseological synonymy and a
dictionary of calques in the old, modern and contemporary language periods.