seccare

Forms

seccare (first-person singular present sécco, first-person singular past historic seccài, past participle seccàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] Old texts also have Old Italian secare and Old Italian siccare.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin siccō (“to dry”), a verb formed from siccus (“dry”).^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Latin already used it for drying things in the sun, draining marshes and emptying cups.^[7]

The same verb lives on across the Romance languages: French sécher, Occitan secar, Catalan secar, Spanish secar, Portuguese secar, Sardinian siccare and Romanian seca.^[4][8][9]

The origin of Latin siccus is uncertain.^[10] De Vaan sets out an adjective Proto-Indo-European *si-sk-u- (“dry”), from a root Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to dry up”) seen in Indo-Iranian and Celtic, but it is unclear how this would give the Latin form.^[10] An older proposal links it with Proto-Indo-European *seykʷ- (“to pour”), which de Vaan finds hard to accept in both meaning and form.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Ristoro d'Arezzo in 1282, in the sense “to make dry, take the moisture out of”.^[3] GRADIT dates the word before 1294, and DEI to the 13th century, in Bono Giamboni.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old Italian the verb was used of people: before 1306 Iacopone da Todi has it for “to exhaust, sap the strength of”, and in 1314 Francesco da Barberino for “to pester, bore”.^[3] Nocentini sees the second sense coming from the first, through the idea of wearing someone out, and it passed to the derivatives seccante “annoying” (16th century), seccatore “bore, nuisance” and seccatura “nuisance” (18th century).^[4] Körting notes that the same figurative sense of “drying someone out” is found elsewhere in Romance, and the GDLI compares the similar shift of stufare.^[9][2]

The sense “to drain of water” is recorded in Leonardo da Vinci, and the reflexive seccarsi meant “to dry up” from before 1292 and “to get bored or annoyed” from 1804.^[3] In sailors' language seccare la barca is to bail out a boat.^[12] The “annoy” sense was borrowed into Austrian German as sekkieren (1788), with the noun Sekkierer “bore”.^[13]

Timeline

• 1282 – Ristoro d'Arezzo uses seccare for “to make dry”.^[3]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni has the reflexive seccarsi “to become dry”.^[3]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone da Todi uses it for “to exhaust”.^[3]
• 1314 – Francesco da Barberino uses it for “to pester, annoy”.^[3][13]
• Before 1519 – Leonardo da Vinci uses it for “to drain of water”.^[3]
• 16th century – seccante is recorded.^[4]
• 1788 – Austrian German sekkieren “to pester” is first recorded.^[13]
• 1804 – Seccarsi “to get annoyed, bored” appears in the Milanese press.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To dry, take the moisture out of; to dehydrate the skin or lips: Il vento di tramontana ha seccato le foglie.^[5][14][15]
2. (transitive) To dry food such as figs, mushrooms, tomatoes or fish in the sun, the air or the oven, to preserve it.^[5][14][16]
3. (transitive) To drain, dry up a lake, marsh or stream.^[5][12][16]
4. (transitive, figurative) To exhaust a faculty or dull a feeling.^[5][12][16]
5. (transitive, figurative) To annoy, pester, bore: Smettila di seccarmi con le tue domande.^[5][16][17]
6. (transitive, figurative) To be awkward or unwelcome to someone: Mi secca dovergli chiedere un altro favore.^[5]
7. (transitive, nautical) To bail the water out of a boat.^[5][12]
8. (intransitive) To dry up, wither.^[5][1]
9. (pronominal, seccarsi) To become dry; to get annoyed.^[3][1]

Word family

• seccante
• seccato
• seccatore
• seccatura
• seccatoio
• seccheria
• riseccare
• seccamento
• seccabile
• seccagione
• asseccare

Related words

• disseccare
• secco
• Latin siccus

Usage notes

The transitive verb takes avere, the intransitive essere.^[1] Beside seccato the past participle has a short form secco, popular and Tuscan.^[17][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 18, 390
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3436
12. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli