scaricare

Forms

scaricare (first-person singular present scàrico, first-person singular past historic scaricài, past participle scaricàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] A literary form is scarcare.^[2] The Sicilian form is scarricari.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Italian s- + caricare (“to load”), with the prefix in its sense of removal.^[4][5][6][1] Meyer-Lübke listed it under Vulgar Latin *discarricāre, with Romanian descărca, French décharger, Occitan descargar, Catalan descarregar, Spanish descargar and Portuguese descarregar, but asked whether each language formed the word on its own.^[7]

caricare comes from Late Latin carricō (“to load”), a derivative of Latin carrus (“wagon”), a word of Celtic origin.^[5][3] The Latin verb is found from about 550 and in glosses;^[3] Wartburg supposed that it had replaced classical onerō (“to load”), which no Romance language keeps, by the 4th century.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Giordano da Pisa's sermons of 1305–1306 have the participle scaricato in the sense “fasting, sober”, literally with an empty stomach.^[4] The verb “to unload, take off a load” is first recorded in Boccaccio's Decameron (1348–1353), which also has the reflexive “to rid oneself of a burden”.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The figurative “to free from a moral weight” is found in the 14th-century Storia di Barlaam.^[4] Boccaccio's Corbaccio (1354–1355) uses the verb for emptying the bowels.^[3] Later centuries added the sense of a river flowing into the sea or a lake (Leonardo, before 1519), “to hurl, deliver” blows or insults (Berni, before 1535), and “to empty” a container (Biringuccio, before 1537).^[4][3] From firearms came scarica, a volley (1648).^[4]

The age of electricity gave scaricare “to discharge” and the reflexive scaricarsi, said of a clock or battery running down (1875).^[4] From 1959 the reflexive also means “to unwind, let off steam”.^[4] In computing the verb means “to download”, and colloquially scaricare qualcuno is to get rid of someone, or to dump a partner.^[6][1] The game scaricabarili (1565) gave the phrase fare a scaricabarili, “to pass the buck”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1305–1306 – Giordano da Pisa uses scaricato “fasting”.^[4]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses scaricare “to unload”.^[4][6]
• Before 1519 – Leonardo uses it of a river flowing out.^[4]
• Before 1535 – Francesco Berni uses it for “to hurl”.^[4]
• 1648 – Scarica “volley” is recorded.^[4]
• 1875 – The reflexive is used of a clock running down.^[4]
• 1949 – “To discharge” electrically is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To unload: to take off a load, or to free a vehicle or animal of its load: Abbiamo scaricato la legna dal furgone.^[6][8]
2. (transitive) To set down passengers: Il taxi ci ha scaricati davanti alla stazione.^[6][8]
3. (transitive) To empty; to fire a weapon or empty it of its rounds.^[6][8]
4. (transitive, figurative) To relieve of a burden or responsibility; to shift blame onto someone: scaricare la colpa sugli altri.^[6][8]
5. (transitive, figurative) To vent feelings; to release tension.^[6]
6. (transitive) To pour out, discharge, of a river or drain.^[6][8]
7. (transitive, colloquial) To get rid of someone; to dump a partner.^[6]
8. (transitive) To discharge a battery or a device, (reflexive) scaricarsi, to run down.^[6][4]
9. (transitive, computing) To download: Ho scaricato il programma dal sito.^[1][6]
10. (transitive) To deduct from taxes.^[6]

Word family

• scarico
• scarica
• scaricatore
• scaricamento
• scaricabarile
• scaricabile
• scaricatoio
• riscaricare

Related words

• caricare
• carico
• carro
• French décharger

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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 Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli