asciugare

Forms

asciugare (first-person singular present asciùgo, first-person singular past historic asciugài, past participle asciugàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] The archaic and regional form is Old Italian sciugare.^[2][3][4] Old texts also have Old Italian assugare and Old Italian aciughare.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin exsūcō (“to draw out the juice; to dry”), with the prefix ad- put in place of ex-.^[6][5][7][8] DEI dates the Latin verb to Caelius Aurelianus in the 5th century and compares the change of prefix with the Spanish form, which took in-.^[9][10] Nocentini derives it from exsūcus (“dry, drained”), from sūcus (“juice”) with the same prefix.^[11] Wiktionary sets up an earlier *asciucare.^[1]

The /g/ for Latin /k/ is a northern voicing, so the standard word came into Tuscan from the dialects of the north; southern Italy has forms such as ⟨asciucari⟩ without it.^[9][12][8]

The verb is panromance: French essuyer, Occitan ensugar, Catalan aixugar, Spanish enjugar, Portuguese enxugar and Romanian usca.^[11][13]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *souḱ-o- (“juice”); the root for “to suck” has both /ḱ/ and /g/, and Schrijver took this wavering for a sign of a loan from a substrate language.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Medieval Latin asugare is recorded at Venice in 1271.^[6] The TLIO's first Italian record is the Lombard poem of Pietro da Bescapè of 1274, and DELI's first Tuscan one is a Sienese document of 1298 that lists tovagluole da sciugare le mani (“little cloths for drying the hands”).^[5][6] The sense is to take the water or moisture off something.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used it of people wiping away tears, sweat or blood, and of the sun, wind or fire drying things; also of emptying a vessel, of the sea losing water to evaporation, and, in the medicine of the four humours, of drying up the body's humours.^[5] Figuratively it meant “to bleed dry” and “to make thirsty”.^[5] Dante writes of an image that m'asciuga, parches him, more than the illness that wastes his face.^[7]

Modern Italian keeps the joking asciugare un fiasco (to drink a flask to the last drop), asciugare le tasche a qualcuno (to leave someone penniless) and asciugare le lacrime (to console), and adds the sense “to make a text more concise”.^[15][2][7] In slang it can mean “to pester”.^[16][1]

The word for a towel has a history of its own: asciugatoio or sciugatoio is in Boccaccio, and was still the only word Carena knew in 1846, while asciugamano, a Tuscan and northern compound found as Medieval Latin sugamanus at Aquileia in 1350, spread to the common language only in the 19th century.^[6]

Timeline

• 1271 – Medieval Latin asugare is recorded at Venice.^[6]
• 1274 – Pietro da Bescapè uses the verb in Lombard verse.^[5]
• 1298 – A Sienese document has sciugare “to dry”.^[6]
• c. 1350 – Asciugamento appears in the translation of Crescenzi.^[6]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses asciugatoio “towel”.^[6]
• 1598 – Florio records sciugamano.^[6]
• 1830 – Asciugamano is recorded at Milan.^[6]
• 1953 – Asciugacapelli “hair dryer” is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To dry: to take the water or moisture off something, with a cloth or by heat: Asciugò i bicchieri con un panno pulito.^{[15][2][3][1]}
2. (transitive) To wipe away (tears, sweat); asciugare le lacrime a qualcuno, to console someone.^[15][3][17]
3. (transitive) To dry up, parch; to drain (a marsh, a pond).^[15][3][2]
4. (transitive, figurative, humorous) To drink to the last drop: asciugare un fiasco.^[15][2][1]
5. (transitive, figurative) To strip of money: asciugare le tasche a qualcuno.^[15][2][3]
6. (transitive, figurative) To make (a text, a style) more concise.^[15][2][16]
7. (transitive, slang) To pester, annoy.^[16][1]
8. (intransitive, also pronominal asciugarsi) To become dry: Le lenzuola stese fuori asciugano in un'ora.^{[15][2][3][1]}
9. (intransitive, pronominal, figurative) To grow thinner.^{[2][8][16][1]}

Word family

• asciugamano
• asciugacapelli
• asciugatoio
• asciugatrice
• asciugatura
• asciugamento
• asciugabiancheria
• asciugatore
• asciugaggine
• prosciugare
• rasciugare
• riasciugare

Related words

• sugo
• succo
• asciutto
• seccare
• Latin sūcus

Usage notes

The auxiliary is avere for the transitive verb and essere for the intransitive one.^[1][2] The old past participle asciutto survives as the adjective asciutto, from Latin exsuctum.^[16][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
5. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 317
10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b c d e Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana