poscrai

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin postcras (“the day after tomorrow”), a compound of post (“after”) and crās (“tomorrow”).^[2][3][4][1] Zingarelli and Gabrielli analyse it as the Latin preposition with the Italian word crai “tomorrow”.^[5][6] Tommaseo derives it from a medieval Latin form recorded in glosses.^[7]

The word belongs to southern Italy, where it lives on as Neapolitan pescràje and in other dialect forms.^[4][3] Sardinian pusticras is the form of central and southern Sardinia.^[8]

The Latin preposition post is from poste, its Old Latin form, from Proto-Italic *posti, from Proto-Indo-European *pósti.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the word to 1481 and GRADIT to 1483, with the sense “the day after tomorrow”.^[5][2] Pulci lists it with crai and other playful words for the days to come.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Outside the south the word was always rare and bookish: GDLI cites the Pasquinate romane and Passeroni, and Tommaseo marks it as obsolete.^[4][7] Modern dictionaries record it as archaic in Italian and alive only in the southern dialects.^[2][3][5][6]

Timeline

• 1481 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[5]
• 1483 – GRADIT's date of first record.^[2]
• 1861 – Tommaseo marks it as obsolete.^[7]

Meanings

Adverb

1. (archaic, literary or southern dialect) The day after tomorrow, dopodomani; overmorrow.^{[2][3][5][6][1]}

Related words

• crai
• dopodomani
• post-

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
7. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill