Etymologically
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caco

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [ˈka.koː][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈkaː.ko][1]

Forms

cacō (present infinitive cacāre, perfect active cacāvī, supine cacātum); first conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *kak(k)-.[2] Cognate with Middle Irish caccaim, Welsh cachu, Ancient Greek κακκάω (kakkáō, “to defecate”), Old Armenian քաքոր (kʻakʻor, “manure”), Russian какать (kakatʹ) and Middle Dutch cacken.[2] De Vaan regards it as either a nursery word or an onomatopoeia; he notes that the Germanic verbs may have been borrowed from Latin.[2] Wiktionary sets up a Proto-Indo-European root *kakka-.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan's first attestation is the comic poet Pomponius, who uses it intransitively and also transitively, “to void”.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It was a vulgar word, used intransitively for “to defecate” by Pomponius, Catullus, Horace and Martial, and transitively for “to void as excrement” and “to befoul”, as Catullus' cacata charta of a worthless poem.[3][4][1] In medieval Latin a noun caco “pillory” is recorded.[5] The verb lived on in the Romance languages: Italian cacare, French chier, Spanish cagar, Portuguese cagar and Romanian căca.[1] English cack comes from it in the mid-15th century.[6]

Timeline

  • 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses it of a man and of a soiled sheet.[3][4][5]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace uses it in the Satires.[3][5]
  • mid-15th century – English cack is recorded as a verb.[6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (intransitive, vulgar) To defecate.[3][1]
  2. (transitive) To void as excrement.[3]
  3. (transitive) To befoul, soil.[4]

Word family

  • cacātor
  • cacāturiō
  • concacō
  • English cack

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  3. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com