descărca

Forms

descărca (third-person singular present descarcă, past participle descărcat, third-person subjunctive descarce) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin discarricō (“to unload”), a verb formed on carricō (“to load”) with the prefix dis-.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The latter goes back to Latin carrus (“wagon”), a word of Gaulish origin.^[1][6] DER and DELR cite Densusianu, Pușcariu, Candrea and Densusianu, the REW and Tiktin for the Latin etymology.^[2][3][7] The DLR instead explains the verb as a Romanian formation, the prefix des- added to încărca with the prefix în- dropped;^[8][3] DELR records this view beside the Latin one.^[8][3]

The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian discarcu, Megleno-Romanian discarc and Istro-Romanian rescarcå, the last with the usual substitution of the prefix.^{[3][2][9][10][1]} Its Romance cognates include Italian scaricare, Sardinian disgarrigare, French décharger, Catalan descarregar, Spanish descargar and Portuguese descarregar; Albanian shkarkoj is a loan from the same Latin verb.^[11][2][1] The computing sense “to download” follows English download.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to the 16th century, in the Codicele Voronețean, at Acts 20:3.^[12] MDA2 gives a translation of Herodotus from before 1645 as its first record.^[4] The New Testament of 1648 has the sense “to unload a ship”: the ship was going to Tyre, „că acolo era corabiia a descărca povara” “for there the ship was to unload its burden”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is concrete: to take the load off a vehicle, a ship or a pack animal, or to empty the vehicle itself.^[3][5][8] Old texts also use the verb for landing goods and for sailing, and for passing a charge to someone else's account.^[4][12] With firearms it meant both to take the charge out of a gun and to fire it.^[2][4][12] A figurative sense, to unburden one's heart or vent one's anger, appears in phrases such as a-și descărca mânia asupra cuiva “to vent one's anger on someone”.^[12][13][5] In the old language the reflexive meant to clear oneself of a charge, and the transitive verb to absolve.^[3][2]

The technical senses are modern: to discharge an electric charge or a battery, to relieve a structure of the forces acting on it, and, in accounting, to declare officially that an administrator's management was correct.^[5][4][3] The press used the verb for downloading files from the Internet by 2003.^[14][3]

Timeline

• c. 1563–1583 – the first record, in the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 20:3).^[12]
• before 1645 – in a translation of Herodotus.^[4]
• 1648 – “to unload a ship” in the New Testament of 1648.^[8]
• c. 1650 – the derivatives descărcat and descărcătură in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[3]
• 1688 – forms of the verb in the Bucharest Bible, as at Genesis 44:11.^[15]
• 1862 – descărcător “unloader” in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[3]
• 2003 – the sense “to download” in the press.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To unload a vehicle, partly or completely; to take a load off.^[5][1]
2. To reduce or remove the forces acting on a body or a technical system.^[5]
3. To take the charge out of a firearm; to fire a gun.^[5][2]
4. To discharge an electric accumulator; to make lose, or to lose, an electric charge.^[5][4]
5. (figurative) To give free rein to feelings; reflexive: to unburden oneself, to confide: și-a descărcat sufletul “he poured out his heart”.^[5][4]
6. To declare officially that someone's management of funds was correct: descărcare de gestiune.^[5][3]
7. (computing) To download files from the Internet.^[3][14][1]

Word family

• descărcat
• descărcător
• descărcătură
• descărcare

Related words

• încărca
• Aromanian discarcu

Usage notes

The opposite verb is încărca “to load”.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. descărca
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. descărca
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 653
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 295
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2652
8. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. descărca
9. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 111
10. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (coord.) et al. (2010–), Dicționarul dialectului meglenoromân, general și etimologic, fascicles in Fonetică și dialectologie XXIX–, p. 210
11. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. descărca
12. ^ 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. descărca
13. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 201
14. ^ a b c Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. descărca
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 44:11