calcare

calcare¹ to tread

Pronunciation

• /kalˈka.re/^[1]

Forms

calcare (first-person singular present càlco, first-person singular past historic calcài, past participle calcàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

The word for treading is inherited from Latin calcō (“to tread, trample”), formed from calx (“heel”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin verb also meant pressing grapes, as in Cato, and the mating of a male bird, and both senses return in Old Italian.^[6]

The verb is Pan-Romance: Old French caucher, Occitan calcar, Catalan calcar, Spanish calcar, Portuguese calcar, Sardinian calcare and Romanian călca.^[3] The LEI adds Friulian calcâ and the Engadine chalchar.^[7] Modern French kept it only as cocher, said of the cock.^[8][9] Italian calpestare goes back to the same verb, reshaped under the influence of pestare.^[7]

De Vaan finds the comparison of the Latin noun with Baltic and Slavic words for parts of the leg doubtful at best, and notes that an origin outside Indo-European, perhaps Etruscan, has been proposed without a concrete source word.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Splanamento of Patecchio, a 13th-century text from Cremona, with the sense “to bear down on something with one's weight, properly with the feet”.^[10] Glosses from Cassino of the mid-13th century have calca[re], and Battisti and Alessio date it to 1271 at Venice.^[7][6] DELI's first record of the sense “to press with the feet” is in Iacopone, before 1306.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From pressing with the feet the verb came to mean walking a road and following someone's tracks, both in Dante, and in the figurative sense “to oppress, humiliate”: Dante's calcando i buoni e sollevando i pravi (“trampling the good and raising up the wicked”).^[7][11][12] Old Italian also used it for pressing grapes, for stuffing a seam of a ship with tarred tow, and for a male animal mating.^[10]

In the 16th century it took the art sense “to copy a drawing by tracing it”, in Vasari in 1550;^[2][13] French borrowed this sense as calquer in 1642.^[2][13] The sense “to stress with the voice” followed in 1664.^[2] The deverbal noun calco “tracing; cast” later gave linguistics its term for a loan translation, after the French calque of 1894;^[2] Matteo Bartoli used calchi in 1925.^[2]

Modern idioms include calcare le scene “to be an actor”, calcare le orme di qualcuno “to follow in someone's footsteps” and calcare la mano “to overdo it”.^[14][11][12]

Timeline

• 13th century – Patecchio's Splanamento (Cremona) has the first record.^[10]
• Mid-13th century – Glosses from Cassino have calca[re].^[7]
• 1271 – The verb is recorded at Venice.^[6]
• c. 1319 – Dante uses it for pressing down and for walking a path.^[7]
• 1550 – Giorgio Vasari uses it for copying a drawing.^[2]
• 1642 – French calquer is recorded in the art sense.^[13]
• 1664 – Sforza Pallavicino uses it for stressing words.^[2]
• 1925 – Matteo Bartoli uses calco for a linguistic loan translation.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tread on, press down with the feet; to tread grapes: Calcavano la neve fresca con gli scarponi.^{[15][11][12][1]}
2. (figurative) To walk along, frequent: calcare le scene, to be an actor;^[14][11][12] calcare le orme di qualcuno, to follow someone's example.^[14][11][12]
3. To press down hard, cram: Ha calcato tutti i maglioni in un solo cassetto;^[14][12][15] calcare la mano, to overdo it.^[14][12][15]
4. To stress, emphasize with the voice: Calcava ogni sillaba per farsi capire.^{[14][11][15][1]}
5. To trace a drawing by going over its outlines; to take a cast of a sculpture.^[14][12][1]
6. (figurative, literary) To oppress, humiliate.^[11][12][1]
7. (obsolete) Of birds, to mate with the female; to sit on eggs.^[14][12]

Word family

• calca
• calco
• calcatoio
• accalcarsi
• ricalcare
• ricalco
• calcarsi

calcare² limestone

Pronunciation

• /kalˈka.re/^[1]

Forms

calcare m (plural calcari)^[1]

Etymology

The word for limestone is borrowed from French calcaire, a learned French word of 1751 modelled on Latin calcārius (“of lime”), from calx (“lime”).^{[2][3][4][15][12]} Wiktionary, Devoto–Oli and the Treccani derive it directly from the Latin adjective.^[1][16][17] The LEI treats the Italian adjective as a 19th-century formation from calcario, with the suffix ⟨-ario⟩ replaced by ⟨-are⟩.^[18]

The same Latin adjective gave the learned Catalan calcari, Portuguese calcário and the Sursilvan calcari.^[18] In Latin the adjective meant “for burning lime”, and as a noun “lime-burner”.^[19][5] De Vaan takes the noun for lime as a loan from Ancient Greek χάλιξ (khálix, “small stone, gravel”), or from another Mediterranean language that gave the word to both Latin and Greek.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Sabatini–Coletti date the noun before 1801.^[15] The LEI's first record is the adjective in Silvio Pellico's writing in Il Conciliatore (1818); DELI has the adjective in the Milanese press in 1824 and the noun, “rock made mostly of calcite”, in Tramater's dictionary in 1830.^[18][2]

Semantic evolution

Tommaseo–Bellini define it as a chemical term for rocks and stones made mostly of carbonate of lime, used as an adjective and as a noun.^[20] D'Annunzio used the adjective for something that looks like limestone, “white as bones in the moonlit frost”, in 1914–1918.^[18]

Geology names many kinds, such as calcare dolomitico and calcare nummulitico.^[4] In everyday use the word also names the whitish deposit that hard water leaves in pipes, taps and appliances.^[4][16][14]

Timeline

• 1751 – French calcaire is first recorded.^[2][18]
• Before 1801 – The Italian noun is first recorded.^[15]
• 1818 – Silvio Pellico uses the adjective in Il Conciliatore.^[18]
• 1824 – The adjective appears in the Milanese press.^[2]
• 1830 – Tramater's dictionary has the noun.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. limestone: a sedimentary rock made mostly of calcite, used in building and for making lime and cement.^{[4][16][17][1]}
2. limescale, the whitish deposit that water leaves on pipes, taps and appliances: Il bollitore è pieno di calcare.^[4][16][14]

Adjective

1. (uncommon) Calcareous: pietra calcare.^[4][16][12]

Word family

• anticalcare