scemare

Forms

scemare (first-person singular present scémo, first-person singular past historic scemài, past participle scemàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *exsēmāre (“to take away half”), from ex- and the Late Latin adjective sēmus (“half”), from Latin sēmis (“half”).^[2][3][4][5] Nocentini, Meyer-Lübke and Prati start instead from *semāre (“to halve”), without the prefix;^[6][7][8] Meyer-Lübke cites the gloss ⟨sematu⟩.^[6][7][8] The same verb is Old French semer and Occitan semar, and the dialect of Venice has semada (“ebb tide”).^[6][7][9] Tommaseo had derived it from eximō (“to take out”) and dismissed the link with the Latin word for “half”.^[10]

The Latin noun is formed from sēmi- (“half”) and as (“a whole, a unit”).^[11][1] De Vaan traces the prefix to Proto-Indo-European *sēm-i (“in one”), with the meaning shifting from “in one” to “one of two” and “half”, and compares Ancient Greek ἡμι- (hēmi-) and Old English sām-.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the verb to about 1250, in an old sense “to make someone less powerful”.^[3] DELI's first record is Dante: transitive “to reduce, lessen” in 1313–1319, and intransitive “to decline in strength or amount” before 1321, as in La sesta compagnia in due si scema (“the company of six is reduced to two”).^[2][13]

Semantic evolution

The adjective scemo is a shortened past participle of the verb: Dante has it for “not full, not whole” (1310–1313), Medieval Latin semus already had that sense at Sacile in the 13th century, and Boccaccio uses it for a person lacking sense (1353).^[2] From scemo came scemenza “foolishness”, which DELI calls a Roman word that spread into common Italian only in the 20th century.^[2][6]

In Tuscany the verb also means drawing off some wine from a full flask or barrel.^[3][5] Today the transitive use is uncommon, and the verb is mostly intransitive, of wind, fever, floods or the waning moon.^[4][14][13]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – The verb is recorded in an old sense.^[3]
• 1310–1313 – Dante uses scemo “not full”.^[2]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses the verb for “to reduce”.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it intransitively.^[2]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses scemo “foolish”.^[2]
• 1532 – Nocentini's date for scemenza.^[6]
• 1918 – Panzini records scemenza as a southern word.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To lessen in intensity, abate: Verso sera il caldo cominciò a scemare.^[3][4][5]
2. (intransitive) To grow fewer or smaller in amount.^[3][4]
3. (intransitive, with di) To lose some of a quality: scemare di prestigio.^[3][4][14]
4. (intransitive) Of the moon or another heavenly body, to wane; of days or nights, to grow shorter.^[3][4][15]
5. (transitive, literary or uncommon) To reduce, lower: scemare le spese.^[3][5][14]
6. (transitive, regional) To draw off a little wine or other liquid from a full container.^[3][5][1]
7. (pronominal, scemarsi, literary) To dwindle.^[5][13]

Word family

• scemo
• scemenza
• scemamento
• scemata

Related words

• mezzo
• Latin sēmis

Usage notes

The intransitive verb takes the auxiliary essere, the transitive avere.^[1][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 885
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli