desculț

Forms

desculț m or n (feminine singular desculță, masculine plural desculți, feminine/neuter plural desculțe)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *disculceus, a form of disculceātus (“barefoot”).^[2][3][1] Wiktionary explains the Vulgar Latin form as a shortening of the Late Latin adjective or as a *discalceus, formed on dis- and calceus (“shoe”), with the /u/ of disculciō (“to take off the shoes”).^[1] Candrea and Densusianu and the DLR start from *disculcius.^[4][5] Ciorănescu prefers to see in it the participle of the variant desculța of descălța, from that Latin verb, and finds a Latin *disculceātus less likely.^[6]

The adjective survives in all four branches: Aromanian discultsu, Megleno-Romanian disculț and Istro-Romanian rescuț, the Istro-Romanian form with its prefix regularly replaced.^[7][6][8] It has close relatives in northern Italian dialects, Friulian and Sardinian iscultzu, and Venetian descolz.^[4][6][1] Italian scalzo, French déchaux, Spanish descalzo, Portuguese descalço and Catalan descalç go back to related forms with ⟨-cal-⟩, such as the reconstructed form in ⟨-calceus⟩.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the personal name Dumitru Desculțul in a Slavonic charter of 1559.^[7][3] In a Romanian text it is first recorded in Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581, meaning “barefoot”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The core sense has stayed “without shoes, barefoot”: Dosoftei tells of a saint who lived „numai cu o rasă, desculț” “in nothing but a cassock, barefoot”.^[5] Barefoot meant poor, and the word, used as a noun, came to mean a poor man and a beggar.^[2][9] Of horses it means unshod.^[9] Regionally it is a name for the bear and for a disease of cattle and sheep in which the hooves come off.^[9]

The verb desculța “to take off one's shoes” is recorded from 1582;^[7] DELR gives both views of it, the Latin verb or a Romanian formation on the adjective.^[7]

Timeline

• 1559 – the personal name Dumitru Desculțul, the first record.^[7][3]
• 1581 – desculț “barefoot” in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[9]
• 1582 – the verb desculța in the Palia de la Orăștie.^[7]
• c. 1660–1670 – desculț glossing Slavonic бос “barefoot” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[10]
• 1688 – desculță in the Bucharest Bible (Isaiah 20:2).^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. barefoot, with bare feet; with the shoes taken off.^[2][1]
2. (of horses) unshod.^[9]

Noun

1. (figurative) A poor man; a beggar.^[2][9]

Word family

• desculța

Related words

• descălța
• Aromanian discultsu

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 297
3. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. desculț
4. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
5. ^ a b Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. desculț
6. ^ a b c 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. descălța
7. ^ a b c d e f 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. desculț
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 395
9. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 659
10. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. desculț
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Isa 20:2