descartar

Forms

descartar (first-person singular present descarto, first-person singular preterite descarté, past participle descartado)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish des- + carta (“playing card”), with the noun in its sense “playing card”.^[2][1][3][4] The noun continues Latin charta (“paper”), from Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs, “papyrus, paper”).^[4]

García de Diego instead groups the general sense “to reject, put aside” with Old French escarter (“to separate”) and Italian squartare, from Vulgar Latin *exquartare (“to divide into four”), and derives only the card-game sense from the noun for “card”.^[5][6] The French verb écarter is usually explained from that Vulgar Latin verb.^[7] Italian scartare “to discard cards” is recorded before 1556.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit without a later copy is a will of 1512, where descartando means “deducting”: descartando vn nouillo que le di para en quenta dello, “deducting a young bull I gave him on account of it”.^[9] An earlier hit in the verse of Juan Alfonso de Baena (1406–1435, in a copy of c. 1465) is of doubtful sense.^[9] The card-game sense is clear in Antonio de Torquemada's Coloquios satíricos (1553), on cheats who quando se descartan slip a card on top of the others.^[9] Corominas gives Fray Luis de León (died 1591) as the first record, and the BDELC c. 1580.^[4][10]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades put the card-game sense first and quoted Gracián: La mejor treta del juego es saberse descartar, “the best trick in the game is knowing how to discard”.^[11] It added the figurative “to reject something or put it aside”, with examples from Calderón, and a military sense, to dismiss soldiers from a company as unfit.^[11] The Academy's 1843 edition recorded the reflexive descartarse of cards and the figurative “to excuse oneself from doing something”.^[12]

Today the main sense is “to rule out”: one descarta a person, an idea or a possibility.^[2][13] The card-game sense lives on in descartarse, and the sense “to excuse oneself” is now rare.^[2]

Timeline

• 1512 – a will uses descartando “deducting”.^[9]
• 1553 – Torquemada's Coloquios satíricos uses descartarse in card play.^[9]
• c. 1580 – the BDELC's first date.^[10]
• before 1591 – Fray Luis de León, Corominas's first record.^[4]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the card sense, the figurative sense and a military sense.^[11]
• 1843 – the Academy adds descartarse “to excuse oneself”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To exclude or eliminate someone or something.^[2][1]
2. To reject, to rule out: La policía no descarta ninguna hipótesis.^[2][1]
3. (card games, reflexive) To discard: to put down the cards one holds that are of no use and take as many new ones from the pack.^[2][1]
4. (reflexive, rare) To excuse oneself from doing something.^[2]

Word family

• descartable
• descarte

Related words

• carta
• encartar
• Italian scartare
• English discard

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. descartar
3. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 222
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 898
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2586
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1609
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. écarter
8. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. scartare
9. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. descartar
10. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. carta
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 127
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 241
13. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. descartar