scădea

Forms

scădea (third-person singular present scade, past participle scăzut, third-person subjunctive scadă) 2nd conjugation^[1] Muntenian speech has scaz, scazi and the subjunctive să scază, and Oltenia the infinitive scade.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excadeō (“to fall out”), from ex- and cadō (“to fall”), a form beside classical excidō.^{[4][3][5][2][1]} The word survives in Aromanian as scad.^[6][7][4] Its Romance cognates are Italian scadere, Occitan escazer, French échoir (Old French escheoir), Old Spanish escaecer and Portuguese esquecer (“to forget”).^[4][8]

The commercial sense “to fall due” is a modern borrowing from Italian, as is the noun scadență, from Italian scadenza.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is of the early 16th century, in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (Psalm 101:28).^[3][9] Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură of 1581 has it of water: „apa să nu scază” “that the water should not go down”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The old senses are intransitive: water going down, the moon waning, a thing growing smaller or fewer.^[10][3] Dosoftei wrote of the moon made „să crească, să scază” “to wax and to wane”, and a text of 1733 advises sowing hemp when the moon wanes.^[10] Cooking gave the sense of a sauce boiling down, recorded in a manuscript of 1749.^[2]

The transitive uses came later: to lower a price or a wage, to deduct a sum, and in arithmetic to subtract, with the noun scădere “subtraction”.^[2][5] The sense of a debt falling due came from Italian.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1500-1520 – scădea in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[3][9]
• 1570 – scăzu “it went down” in Coresi's psalter.^[11]
• 1581 – of water going down in Coresi's Evanghelie cu învățătură.^[10]
• 1673 – of the waning moon in Dosoftei's verse psalter.^[10]
• 1749 – of a dish boiling down, in a manuscript.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To decrease, diminish; to make smaller or lower (a quantity, a value, a price); of days, to grow shorter.^[5][1]
2. (mathematics) To subtract; also, to deduct part of a sum before paying it.^[5][1]
3. Of things, to shrink; of rivers and seas, to go down; of a sauce, to thicken by boiling.^[5]
4. Of a process, to weaken; of a fire, to die down; of the voice, to drop.^[5]
5. Of the sun or the moon, to sink towards setting.^[5][12]

Word family

• scădere
• scăzător

Related words

• cădea
• decădea
• Aromanian scad

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. scădea
3. ^ 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. 2, 792
4. ^ a b c d e 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. scădea
5. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 985
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 925
7. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 59
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2944
9. ^ a b 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 101:28
10. ^ 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. scădea
11. ^ 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 11:1
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. scădea