secar

Forms

secar (first-person singular present seco, first-person singular preterite sequei, past participle secado)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese forms are secon in the 13th century and secar and ssecar in the 14th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin siccō (“to dry, make dry”), written Old Galician-Portuguese secar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from siccus (“dry”).^[5][6]

The same Latin verb is Galician secar, Spanish secar, Catalan secar, French sécher, Italian seccare and Romanian seca.^[7][8]

De Vaan reconstructs the adjective as *siskʷos, perhaps from a reduplicated Proto-Indo-European *si-sk-u- (“dry”), with cognates in Middle Irish sesc (“dry, barren”) and Avestan hišku- (“dry”);^[6][1] Wiktionary also connects it with ἰσχνός (iskhnós, “dry, lean”), though the phonetic details are unclear.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century, from Cunha's slips of medieval Portuguese.^[2][3] In the cantigas it is both transitive and intransitive: a troubadour reproaches someone who has cut the branches where birds perched e lhis secastes as fontes u se banhavan “and dried up the springs where they bathed”.^[9] The Crónica Troiana tells of flowers that soon sse secauan “withered”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The medieval senses, “to deprive of water” and “to wither”, are still the core of the verb.^[2][9] From “to drain” it came to mean “to stop flowing, run dry” of a spring, a river or blood, and “to waste away, lose strength” of a person.^[2][11] A figurative sense “to bore, annoy” (Portuguese maçar) is old enough for Silva Bastos to record it in 1912, and Michaelis quotes Eça de Queirós for the reflexive secar-se “to be bored”.^[12][13]

Brazilian slang gave the verb new senses: “to bring bad luck on, put the evil eye on”, said especially of fans wishing a rival team to lose, “to covet” and “to use up completely”, as of a bank account.^[2][11][1]

Timeline

• 1200s – first record, in the form secon.^[2][3]
• 13th century – a cantiga has secastes as fontes “you dried up the springs”.^[9]
• 14th century – the Crónica Troiana uses secarse of withering flowers.^[10]
• c. 1430 – secar in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[14]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the sense “to annoy”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To dry, to remove water or moisture from: secar o cabelo ao sol.^[2][11][1]
2. (intransitive, also reflexive) To become dry; to evaporate.^[2][15][1]
3. (nautical) To beach a boat, to put it on dry land.^[2][15]
4. To drain or exhaust;^[2][16] (intransitive) to stop flowing, run dry: o poço secou.^[2][16]
5. To wither or make wither.^[2][1]
6. To bore or annoy;^[2][13] (reflexive) to get bored.^[2][13]
7. (intransitive, also reflexive) Of the voice: to fail.^[2]
8. To stop or interrupt; to make insensitive.^[2][11]
9. To waste away, lose strength.^[2][13]
10. (Brazil, informal) To bring bad luck on, wish failure on, especially an opposing team.^[2][1]
11. (Brazil, informal) To covet, to look on with envy.^[2]
12. (Brazil, informal) To use up completely.^[2]

Word family

• secador
• secagem
• ressecar

Related words

• seca
• seco
• dessecar
• Latin siccus
• Galician secar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 r s t u Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. secar
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. secar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. secar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. siccō
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. siccare
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. siccare
9. ^ a b c 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. secar
10. ^ a b 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. secar
11. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. secar
12. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. secar
13. ^ a b c d 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. secar
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. secar
15. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. secar
16. ^ a b 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. secar