ascuți

Forms

ascuți (third-person singular present ascute, past participle ascuțit, third-person subjunctive ascută) 4th conjugation^[1]

Etymology

DELR calls its origin uncertain.^[2] The usual view is that it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excōtīre (“to sharpen on a whetstone”), from cōs (“whetstone”), accusative cōtem;^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Hasdeu, Pușcariu, Tiktin, the REW, Ciorănescu and DEX take this view.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} cuțit “knife”, from a participle *cōtītus, and cute “whetstone” come from the same root.^[4][2] DELR compares verbs formed on the same noun in Italian dialects and in Logudorese Sardinian, meaning “to polish, sharpen”.^[2] The Latin noun comes from *ḱeh₃- (“to sharpen”).^[1][7]

Candrea and Densusianu proposed *exacūtīre instead, from exacūtus (“sharpened”), with loss of the vowel ⟨a⟩.^[2][3] The DA saw in it a blend of the whetstone verb, for “to make sharp-edged”, and *acūtiāre (“to make pointed”), from acūtus (“sharp”), the verb behind Italian aguzzare, French aiguiser and Spanish aguzar.^[2][3][8] Ciorănescu and DELR answer that the first etymon explains both senses, as one Spanish verb also combines both senses, and that the whetstone verb gives the Romanian verb by regular change, as ēricius gave arici.^[3][2]

Wiktionary compares Megleno-Romanian ascut, with the participle scuțǫt.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (c. 1500–1520): the participle ascuţit in Psalm 51:2 and ascuțiră “they sharpened” in Psalms 63:3 and 139:3.^[2][9] Coresi's psalter renders Psalm 139:3 „Ascuțiră limba sa ca a șarpelui” “they sharpened their tongue like a serpent's”.^[4][10]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant both “to make sharp-edged” and “to give a point”, as it still does.^[3][6] The psalms already use it of sharpening the tongue, and Ureche (c. 1642–1647) of hearts that grow hard in war: „inimile voinicilor în războaie trăind se ascut”.^[4] Cantemir compares kings who sharpen the sword with writers who sharpen the pen.^[4]

MDA2 records many set phrases: a-și ascuți urechile “to listen hard”, a-și ascuți limba “to get ready to sting with words”, a-și ascuți dinții după ceva “to covet something”, and a-și ascuți picioarele “to get ready to run”.^[11] The reflexive a se ascuți la cineva “to raise one's voice at someone, threaten” is regional, and the old texts also use it for “to stand ready” and “to invent”.^[11][2] The modern sense “to grow sharper, intensify”, of conflicts, appears in DEX.^[6][11]

The family grew early: the participle ascuțit “sharp” from 1581, ascuțitură “point” from 1686, ascuțitor and ascuțeală in Corbea's dictionary (1691–1697), and ascuțiș “edge” and ascuțitoare “sharpener” in the Lexicon of Buda (1825).^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – ascuţit and ascuțiră in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2][12]
• 1566 – the verbal noun ascuțit “sharpening” in Coresi.^[2]
• 1570 – ascuți in Coresi's psalter (Psalm 44:7).^[13]
• 1581 – the adjective ascuțit “sharp” in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[2]
• c. 1642–1647 – the figurative sense in Ureche's chronicle.^[4][11]
• 1686 – ascuțitură in Dosoftei.^[2]
• 1691–1697 – ascuțeală, ascuțitor and ascuțițel in Teodor Corbea's dictionary.^[2]
• 1825 – ascuțiș and ascuțitoare in the Lexicon of Buda.^[2]
• 1951 – ascuțitorie “grinding shop” in Scânteia.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To sharpen the blade of a weapon or a cutting tool; to whet, hone.^[6][11][1]
2. (transitive) To give an object a point.^[6][11]
3. (transitive and reflexive, figurative) To make or become keener, more acute: of the mind, the hearing, the sight.^[6][11]
4. (transitive and reflexive) To make or become more intense; to intensify.^[6][11]
5. (reflexive, regional) To raise one's voice at someone; to threaten.^[11][2]

Word family

• ascuțeală
• ascuțime
• ascuțiș
• ascuțit
• ascuțitoare
• ascuțitor
• ascuțitorie
• ascuțitură

Related words

• cute
• cuțit
• Latin cōs

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. ascuți
3. ^ a b c d e f Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. ascuți
4. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. ascuți
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2275
6. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 66
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 134
9. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 63:3
10. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 139:3
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 109
12. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 51:2
13. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 44:7