cacare

Forms

cacare (first-person singular present càco, first-person singular past historic cacài, past participle cacàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The northern form cagare is also used in regional speech.^[2][3][1] Old Sicilian had Old Italian cacari in the 14th century.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cacō (“to defecate”), a word of children's speech.^[5][6][7][1] The Latin verb continues throughout Romance: French chier (from 1202), Occitan cagar, Catalan cagar, Spanish cagar, Portuguese cagar, Sardinian cagare (“to soil”), Romanian căca and Dalmatian kakuor.^{[7][8][9][10]} The voiced ⟨g⟩ of cagare spread from the northern dialects.^[3]

De Vaan sets up Proto-Italic *kak(k)- and calls the verb either a nursery word or an onomatopoeia.^[11] He compares Welsh cachu, Ancient Greek κακκάω (kakkáō, “to shit”) and German kacken, though the Germanic verbs may have been borrowed from Latin.^[11] The LEI describes it as a popular Indo-European type with the vowel ⟨a⟩ and a doubled inner consonant, and Devoto points to counterparts in Celtic, Greek, Armenian and Slavic.^[8][12] The doubled form, as in cacca, is the expressive form of the same root.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb first appears at the end of the 13th century in the Sienese Cecco Angiolieri,^[13] in the phrase tenere un gran cacare “to be greatly annoyed by something”.^[5][13] The plain sense “to defecate” is recorded in Perugian statutes of 1342 and in Franco Sacchetti, before 1400.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian had several phrases built on it: cacare nel vaglio “to shit in the sieve”, for a pointless undertaking, and lasciarsi cacare in capo, to let oneself be wronged without reacting; used with contempt, the verb also meant “to give birth”.^[13] The transitive “to expel from the body” is dated from Straparola (1550–1553).^[5] Machiavelli's Mandragola has cacare le curatelle (“to shit one's innards”) for toiling to the limit.^[14] Derivatives followed: cacatoio “latrine” (1546, Aretino), cacarella “diarrhoea” (1615, Marino) and cacata (before 1749).^[5] Cacasenno, a know-all, comes from the hero of a story by Adriano Banchieri (1568–1634).^[5][7]

Modern Italian keeps the verb as vulgar, with many figurative uses: cacare soldi for having or making money in abundance, far cacare for being awful.^[2] In young people's slang it has come to mean “to take notice of someone”, mostly in negative sentences.^[6][2][15]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – Cecco Angiolieri uses tenere un gran cacare.^[13][5]
• 1342 – Perugian statutes have the verb.^[4]
• Before 1400 – Franco Sacchetti uses it for “to defecate”.^[5]
• 1546 – Aretino has cacatoio “latrine”.^[5]
• 1550–1553 – Straparola uses it transitively.^[5]
• 1615 – Giovan Battista Marino has cacarella.^[5]
• 1866 – Cacasenno is recorded in the fifth Crusca.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (vulgar, intransitive) To defecate, to shit.^[6][2][16]
2. (vulgar, transitive) To expel by defecating;^[6][2] (figurative) to produce in great quantity: Quello caca soldi.^[6][2]
3. (figurative) To produce something with great effort.^[2][17]
4. (slang) To pay attention to someone, mostly in negative sentences: In classe nessuno lo caca.^[6][2][17]

Word family

• cacarella
• cacasangue
• cacasotto
• cacata
• cacatoio
• cacasenno
• sconcacare
• cacadubbi
• cacapensieri
• cacasentenze

Related words

• cacca
• caccola
• French chier

Usage notes

Common phrases are cacarsi addosso or sotto, to be scared stiff;^[2][16][17] cacare sangue, to have dysentery, and figuratively to toil hard; and va’ a cacare, a rude dismissal.^[2][16][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 9
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 9, 237
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 651
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 73
13. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. Supplemento 2009
16. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana