prosciugare

Forms

prosciugare (first-person singular present prosciùgo, first-person singular past historic prosciugài, past participle prosciugàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

DELI, GRADIT, Zingarelli, Treccani and the GDLI take it as an Italian formation: it is from Italian asciugare, with the prefix pro- put in place of the prefix of the simpler verb.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Nocentini and Prati reconstruct Vulgar Latin *perexsūcāre “to dry thoroughly”, formed with the intensive prefix per- on Late Latin exsūcāre (“to dry”), the verb behind asciugare.^[7][8] Devoto, Devoto–Oli and Wiktionary give the prefix as prō- instead: *proexsūcāre.^[9][10][1]

Meyer-Lübke also set up *perexsūcāre “to dry out”, with prosciutto “ham”, the dried meat, as its derivative.^[11] exsūcāre is the source of Romanian usca, French essuyer, Old Occitan eisugar and Spanish enjugar.^[11]

Devoto explains the ⟨g⟩ of the Tuscan word by the northern voicing of /k/ between vowels.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI dates the first record before 1574, in Giorgio Vasari, with the sense “to make dry by freeing from water”.^[2][3] Tommaseo quotes Vasari on painting on stone: such paintings can be varnished or not, perchè la pietra non prosciuga, cioè non sorbisce quanto fa la tavola e la tela (“because stone does not dry up, that is, does not soak up as much as panel and canvas do”).^[12]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb meant drawing moisture out of something, and Treccani notes that it usually refers to the absorption of a liquid or of inner moisture rather than to the removal of wetness from a surface.^[5] In the 18th century it became a word of land reclamation: Targioni Tozzetti wrote of draining the plain, and later writers name the draining of Lake Fucino among the great works of their age.^[6]

Figurative uses followed: Alfieri spoke of a thankless task that dried up his brain, and the verb came to mean making a person thin and emaciated, or emptying a purse, a treasury or a store of energy.^[5][3] The pronominal prosciugarsi means “to dry up”, of a lake or a spring, and figuratively “to waste away, fade”, as in Cesare Pavese's La vita in lui si prosciugava (“Life was drying up in him”).^[4][5]

The derivatives are later: prosciugato is recorded in 1681 in Baldinucci and prosciugamento in 1832 in Antonelli, and DELI cites prosciugamento from Tramater's dictionary of 1835.^[13][2]

Timeline

• Before 1574 – Giorgio Vasari uses prosciugare.^[2][3]
• 1681 – The participle prosciugato appears in Baldinucci.^[13]
• 1832 – Prosciugamento is recorded in Antonelli.^[13]
• 1835 – Tramater's dictionary lists prosciugamento.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To dry completely, especially to drain or reclaim land by freeing it from stagnant water: Le pompe hanno prosciugato il seminterrato.^{[3][10][14][1]}
2. To take the moisture out of something, to parch: Il vento caldo ha prosciugato i campi.^[3][10]
3. To make a person very thin, to emaciate.^[3][10][5]
4. (figurative) To use up completely, to drain money, resources or energy: Il mutuo gli ha prosciugato i risparmi.^{[3][14][5][1]}
5. (pronominal, prosciugarsi) To dry up, of a lake, river or spring, and figuratively to fade or run out: Il pozzo si è prosciugato in agosto.^[10][14][5]

Word family

• prosciugamento
• prosciugatura
• prosciugatoio

Related words

• asciugare
• prosciutto
• Late Latin exsūcō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
6. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 14, 690
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 807
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3110
14. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse