secco

Forms

secco (feminine secca, masculine plural secchi, feminine plural secche, diminutive secchìno or secchétto)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin siccus (“dry”).^[2][3][4][1] The word is pan-Romance: French sec, Occitan sec, Catalan sec, Spanish seco, Portuguese seco, Sardinian siccu and Romanian sec.^[3][5] The Latin verb siccō (“to dry”) gave seccare.^[2]

The Latin adjective is of Indo-European origin, but its form is unclear.^[2][6] Nocentini compares Ancient Greek ἰσχνός (iskhnós, “dry, lean”), Avestan and Irish words for “dry”, among them Irish seasc, and a root meaning “to drain, dry up”, seen in Lithuanian nusèkti (“to fall (of water)”).^[3] De Vaan sets out the root Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to dry up”) and an adjective Proto-Indo-European *si-sk-u-, but cannot explain how either would give the Latin double ⟨cc⟩, so he leaves the etymology uncertain.^[6] Devoto derived it from Latin *siticus (“thirsty”), linking it with sete.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is before 1292 in Bono Giamboni, in the sense “without moisture or water”, and in the same author for a very thin person.^[2] The noun secco “dry place” is in Brunetto Latini before 1294, and “drought” in a 13th-century Lucchese chronicle.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Guittone d'Arezzo used it before 1294 for “dried, withered”.^[2] Figurative senses followed: “without grace or warmth” of manners or style (14th century, Aesop translation), and “sudden, clean” of a blow, as in Giusti's tiro secco (1835).^[2] Wine was called secco “not sweet” before 1597 (Soderini), and in the lottery an ambo or terno secco is a combination played on its own (1843).^[2] The verb seccare gained the sense “to bore, annoy” as early as 1314 (Francesco da Barberino), a step DELI finds unclear; from it come seccatore and seccatura.^[2]

Expressions of the modern language include fare secco “to kill on the spot”, restarci secco “to die instantly”, la Comare secca for death, and a secco for work done without water or mortar.^[4][8] English borrowed secco as a term of art (fresco secco, 1852) and of music (recitativo secco, 1876).^[9] Körting reports the claim that German Sekt and English sack come from vino secco.^[10]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses secco “dry” and “very thin”.^[2]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses the noun secco “dry place”.^[2]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses secchezza “dryness”.^[2]
• 1314 – Francesco da Barberino uses seccare “to annoy”.^[2]
• Before 1597 – Giovanni Vettorio Soderini calls a wine secco.^[2]
• 1835 – Giuseppe Giusti uses tiro secco “sudden blow”.^[2]
• 1852 – English secco is first recorded, in painting.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. dry, without water or moisture; parched: un orto secco, gola secca.^[4][11][12]
2. Dried up, of a well or stream: il torrente è secco da mesi.^[4][11]
3. Dried or withered; dried for keeping: foglie secche, funghi secchi; of bread, stale.^[4][12]
4. Of weather or climate, with little humidity or rain.^[4][8]
5. Very thin, skinny: secco come un chiodo.^[4][12][8]
6. (figurative) Curt, blunt: un rifiuto secco; of style, terse and plain.^[4][12][13]
7. Sharp, sudden, clean: un colpo secco.^[4][13]
8. Of wine, not sweet.^[12][13][8]
9. (lottery) Of a combination, played on its own: ambo secco.^[13][14]

Noun

1. Dry land; a dry place: tirare la barca in secco.^[1][2]
2. drought, dryness.^[1][15][2]

Word family

• secca
• seccare
• seccante
• seccato
• seccatore
• seccatura
• seccherello
• secchezza
• seccume
• seccagno
• disseccare
• insecchire
• rinsecchire
• risecchire

Related words

• siccità
• essiccare
• Latin siccus
• French sec

Usage notes

An adjective secco “annoyed, fed up”, used by Carlo Gozzi and Carlo Dossi, is a shortened past participle of seccare and is listed separately by the GDLI.^[16] In the expression a secco, work is done without water or liquid, as in pittura a secco and dry cleaning.^[4][9]

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 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
3. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
9. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 18, 404