căca

Forms

căca (third-person singular present cacă, past participle căcat, third-person subjunctive cace) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cacō (“to defecate”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1][7]} De Vaan calls the Latin verb a nursery word or an onomatopoeia, and compares Ancient Greek κακκάω (kakkáō).^[8] Wiktionary traces it to an imitative Proto-Indo-European *kakka-.^[1]

The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian cac, Megleno-Romanian cac and Istro-Romanian cǫc.^[2][9][1] Its Romance cognates include Dalmatian kakuor, Italian cacare, Occitan cagar, Spanish cagar, Portuguese cagar and French chier.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the verb to 1637;^[3][6] Tiktin records that year the personal name Cacă-Bani.^[3][6] MDA2 gives no record before Laurian and Massim's dictionary of 1871.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The verb is used of people and of animals, mostly in the reflexive, rarely intransitive.^[10][6] Transitively it means to soil with excrement, and of women, crudely, to give birth with ease.^[10][5] A saying records the sense “give back”: Cacă, lupe, ce-ai mâncat “Wolf, give back what you have eaten”, said to a robber.^[6] In the reflexive with pe or în it now also means not to care at all.^[1]

Some family members are recorded before the verb: the personal name Căcăradză (1487) lies behind căcărează “sheep or goat dung”, and the noun căcat appears in 1573.^[3] DELR and most dictionaries form căcat on the verb;^[3] CADE and Ciorănescu take it from Latin cacātus.^[3] The nursery word caca is recorded from 1825.^[3] Ciorănescu reports that Bulgarian (po)kakam “to defecate” and a Sarakatsan Greek kakarandza “excrement” come from Romanian.^[2]

Timeline

• 1487 – the personal name Căcăradză, behind căcărează.^[3]
• 1573 – the noun căcat.^[3]
• 1620 – căcâcea “coward”.^[3]
• 1637 – the verb, with the personal name Cacă-Bani.^[3][6]
• 1825 – the nursery word caca.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (vulgar, chiefly reflexive) To defecate.^[5][4][1]
2. (vulgar, transitive) To shit out; to soil, to fill with excrement; also reflexive.^[5][4][1]
3. (vulgar, figurative) Of a woman, to give birth easily.^[5][4]
4. (vulgar, reflexive, with pe or în) Not to give a damn about something.^[1]

Word family

• căcat
• caca
• cacă-frică
• căcăcios
• căcărează
• căcănar
• căcăniu

Related words

• Aromanian cac
• Latin cacō

Usage notes

S-a căcat în scăldătoare is said of a lucky person.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. căca
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. căca
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 316
5. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 155
6. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. căca
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1443
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 53
10. ^ a b Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. căca