escasso

Forms

escasso (feminine escassa, masculine plural escassos, feminine plural escassas)^[1] From the 16th to the 19th century the word was often spelt escaço: a letter of 1753 has it, and Morais (1789) and Vieira (1871–1874) head the word escasso but refer to or quote escaço.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excarsus (“picked out, thinned”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escasso in the oldest texts.^[5][1][6] The Vulgar Latin form is a reduction of *excarpsus, a popular past participle of Latin excerpō (“to pick out, select”) that took the place of the classical excerptus; the verb is formed on carpō (“to pluck, gather”).^[5][7][8] The form Medieval Latin excarpsus is recorded in Carolingian capitularies from 805 on.^[7][9] Wiktionary notes that the learned excerto is a doublet of the word.^[1]

The same Vulgar Latin word is Spanish escaso, Catalan escàs, Occitan escars, Italian scarso and Old French eschars, and it was borrowed into Basque eskas.^[7][10][11] Corominas holds that the original sense was “thinned out”, hence “not abundant”, while the oldest Spanish texts, like the Portuguese ones, use it for a mean, miserly person.^[7]

Older scholars proposed other sources: Bluteau took the word from the Italian adjective, and Vieira explained it as cassus (“empty”) with a prefix ⟨es-⟩.^[12][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the satirical cantigas of the 13th century, where an escasso is a miser: Pero da Ponte calls it baseness for a young knight to be escasso muit'e de guardar haver “very stingy and given to hoarding goods”, and João Garcia de Guilhade tells how people posfaçavan d'un escasso “were speaking ill of a miser”.^[13][14][15] Cunha gives the 13th century as the first date, Houaiss the 14th.^[8][5]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language the word meant “mean, niggardly”, as an adjective and as a noun; the Galician Crónica Troiana sets the escasso against the open-handed fran.^[15] The sense “scant, in short supply” is the one Houaiss puts first today.^[5] Bluteau (1712–1728) still gives “very sparing” first, but also uses the word for a coin under its proper weight and for a weak wind: tempo escasso was weather with too little wind for sailing.^[12] Morais (1813) adds “short, narrow” and a proverb that sets the ungrateful above the stingy, antes desagradecido que escasso.^[16]

The miserly sense lives on in the noun escasso “miser” and in the regional speech of Portugal, where the TLPGP records escasso as “stingy, mean”.^[5][17] The derivatives escassear (c. 1538) and escassez (c. 1767) belong to the sense “scarce”.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 13th century – the cantigas of Pero da Ponte and João Garcia de Guilhade use escasso for a miser.^[13][15]
• 13th century – Cunha also dates escasseza “scarcity” and escacesa to this century.^[8]
• 14th century – Houaiss's first date for the adjective, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[5]
• c. 1538 – first record of the verb escassear, spelt escarçear.^[18]
• 1556 – a private letter writes escasos.^[2]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines the word as “very sparing” and records escasso vento, a slight wind.^[12]
• c. 1767 – first record of escassez, spelt escaces.^[19]
• 1813 – Morais adds the senses “short, narrow”.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. scarce, found only in small quantity; scanty: Naquele verão a chuva foi escassa.^[5][1][20]
2. Lacking or poorly provided with something: escasso de paciência.^[5][20]
3. Small in size; cramped.^[5][21]
4. Weak, of little intensity: o brilho escasso das velas.^[5][22]
5. Barely reaching an amount; just under: duas horas escassas.^[21]
6. (dated or regional) stingy, miserly.^[21][23][17]

Noun

1. A miser, a stingy person.^[5][21]

Word family

• escassamente
• escassear
• escassez

Related words

• excerto
• Latin excerpō
• Spanish escaso

Usage notes

Caldas Aulete records the proverb o escasso do real faz ceitil, e o liberal do ceitil faz real “the miser makes a farthing of a real, and the generous man a real of a farthing”.^[24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. escasso
3. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 32
4. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 3, 245
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. escasso
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. escasso
7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 691
8. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. escasso
9. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. excarpsus
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2961
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. *excarpsus
12. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. escasso
13. ^ a b Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. escasso
14. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. escasso
15. ^ a b c Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. escasso
16. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 738
17. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. escasso
18. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. escassear
19. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. escassez
20. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. escasso
21. ^ a b c d Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. escasso
22. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. escasso
23. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3783
24. ^ Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. escasso