curt

Forms

curt (feminine curta, masculine plural curts, feminine plural curtes)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin curtus (“docked, cut short; incomplete”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]}

The same Latin word is French court, Occitan cort, Italian corto, Spanish corto and Portuguese curto; Romanian scurt owes its s- to *excurtiō (“to shorten”).^[6] In Latin the adjective meant mutilated or incomplete; in all the Romance languages it took the place of brevis (“short”) as the everyday word for “short”.^[2][7]

A Latin short /u/ before /rt/ should give /o/, as it does in Spanish, Italian and French, and the /u/ of the Catalan word is unexpected.^[2][6] In Portuguese and Galician it comes from a vowel harmony that is regular there but not in Catalan.^[2] Coromines explains it from derivatives such as escurçar, where /u/ before the cluster /rtj/ is regular, and finds the same /u/ in the neighbouring speech of Ribagorça and Upper Aragon, in an inventory from Aragon of 1373–1402, and in many places where Occitan is spoken.^[2]

The Latin word reflects Proto-Italic *korto-, from Proto-Indo-European *kr̥-to- (“cut off”), of the root of Ancient Greek κείρω (keírō, “to cut off, shear”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

CICA's first record is in Bernat Desclot's chronicle, of the late 13th century.^[8] The first quotation DECat gives is from Muntaner's chronicle, about 1330: Pendrem lo pus breu temps e lo pus curt que puscam “we shall take the briefest and shortest time we can”.^[2] Coromines also counts as practically Catalan a Barcelona Latin document of 1055 that orders the sale of a cavallo curto, which he reads as a horse with a docked tail, not a gelding.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The medieval word meant short in length and in time, and Muntaner speaks of a curt respost, a curt answer.^[9] The old sense “docked, tailless” lives on in Mallorca, said of pigs.^[2][3] The DCVB records many figurative senses: scanty or insufficient, short of money, slow at work or in walking, at a loss for words, timid, dim-witted, quick to anger.^[3] In Menorca curt is especially “simple, foolish”, as in curt de gambals.^[2]

The dictionary of Esteve, Bellvitges and Juglà (1803–1805) adds a coin that lacks its legal weight, and Labèrnia repeats it.^[10][11] The derivatives are old: curtedat is recorded in 1588 and escurçar in the Tirant; much of Valencia says acurtar instead of escurçar.^[4][2] The DIEC2 also heads an adverb, as in fer curt “to fall short in a reckoning”, and the DEIEC a noun curt, short for curtmetratge, a short film.^[12][13]

Timeline

• 1055 – cavallo curto in a Latin document from Barcelona.^[2]
• late 13th century – curt in Desclot's chronicle.^[8]
• 1325 – Muntaner's chronicle: faeren li n curt respost.^[9]
• 1377–1422 – four records in documents.^[2]
• 1460 – Jaume Roig's Spill: curt hi vull dir “I mean to be brief”.^[9]
• 1588 – first record of curtedat.^[2][4]
• 1803 – Esteve, Bellvitges and Juglà list the word, with the sense of a coin short of weight.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. short: of little length: Aquest estiu porta els cabells molt curts.^[5][3][1]
2. Lasting a short time; brief: La visita va ser curta.^[3][5]
3. Scanty, insufficient; short of something.^[3][5]
4. (figurative) Slow-witted, dim;^[1] curt de gambals.^[3][2][1]
5. Shy, timid, lacking resolve.^[3][14]
6. (Balearic) Of an animal, especially a pig: without a tail.^[3][2]

Adverb

1. Short of what was reckoned or expected;^[1] fer curt to fall short.^[12]

Noun

1. A short film, a curtmetratge.^[13][1]

Word family

• curtament
• curtària
• curtedat
• curtesa
• curtejar
• escurçar
• escurçament
• curtcircuit
• curtmetratge
• ultracurt

Related words

• escurçó
• Latin curtus
• Spanish corto
• French court

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 1112
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. curt
4. ^ a b c Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 264
5. ^ a b c d Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. curt
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2421
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. curt
9. ^ a b c Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. curt
10. ^ a b Esteve, Joaquim; Bellvitges, Josep; Juglà, Antoni (1803–1805), Diccionario catalán-castellano-latino, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. curt
11. ^ Labèrnia, Pere (1839–1840), Diccionari de la llengua catalana ab la correspondencia castellana y llatina, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. curt
12. ^ a b Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. curt
13. ^ a b Institut d'Estudis Catalans, Diccionari essencial de la llengua catalana (DEIEC), online, https://deiec.iec.cat, p. s.v. curt
14. ^ Vallès, Emili (1927), Pal·las: diccionari català il·lustrat, Barcelona: Salvat, p. s.v. curt