scoate

Forms

scoate (present scot, third-person singular scoate, past participle scos, subjunctive scoată), 3rd conjugation^[1] Regional speech has the present scoț, and old texts have the preterite scoș beside scosei.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excotō (“to shake out”), a popular remodelling of Latin excutiō (“to shake out, knock out”).^[3][2][4][1] The Latin verb is made of ex- (“out of”) and quatiō (“to shake”).^[1][5] DER finds the Vulgar Latin form hard to explain but notes that Italian scuotere (“to shake”) confirms it, while Sardinian iscudere continues the classical vowel.^[3] Graur 1980 reconstructs the same verb as *exquatiō.^[6]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian scot and Istro-Romanian scot.^[3][7] The REW lists Romance cognates such as Dalmatian scutro, Old French escourre and Occitan escoire, the last two meaning “to thresh”.^[8][1]

The shift from “shake out” to “take out” is explained by shaking straw or a fruit tree to get the grain or the fruit;^[3] The Latin verb also meant “to thresh” in the Middle Ages, according to Niermeyer as DER cites him.^[3] Ungureanu compares the French dialect sense “to thresh corn” and an Old French use of the same verb meaning “to tear out”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[2] That psalter has scoate 30 times and scoase nine times.^[10] Tiktin's earliest place is the Psaltirea Scheiană, Psalm 36:6.^[11] The first sense in MDA2 and the DLR is drawing a liquid out of a well or vessel, as in a Coresi print: „Vine o muiare ... să-și scoată apă” “a woman comes … to draw herself water”.^[12][2]

Semantic evolution

From “take out” the verb spread to almost every kind of removal and production: Ciorănescu lists 23 senses, among them “drive out”, “dismiss from office”, “copy”, “photograph”, “embroider”, “invent” and, in old texts, “translate”.^[3] The dictionary of Chițimia and Toma records the sense “translate” in the old literature.^[13] Tiktin gathers the common phrases: a scoate apă “to draw water”, a scoate pui “to hatch chicks” and a scoate o carte “to publish a book”.^[11]

Aromanian scot has a similar spread of senses, including “invent” and “compose verses”.^[7] The related verb scutura “to shake” keeps the old Latin meaning.^[3][6]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – scoate in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2][10]
• c. 1573–1578 – scoate in the Psaltirea Scheiană, Psalm 36:6.^[11][14]
• 1649 – scoate in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[15]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses the infinitive scoate 216 times.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take something out of a larger quantity or out of the place where it is; to extract something from a container or covering.^[4][1]
2. To pull out by force: a scoate un cui “to pull out a nail”; figuratively, to obtain with difficulty.^[4]
3. To take off a garment or an ornament; to unharness a draught animal.^[4]
4. To bring out into view or display: a scoate la vânzare “to put up for sale”.^[4]
5. To drive out or expel; to dismiss from a post; to strike off a list.^[4]
6. To get someone out of a difficult situation; to rescue.^[4]
7. To obtain a product from something; to earn: a-și scoate pâinea “to earn one's living”.^[4]
8. To make a copy or a photograph; to publish: A scos un nou roman.^[4]
9. To utter sounds or words; to invent or make up.^[4]
10. (of birds) To hatch chicks;^[4] (of plants) to put forth shoots.^[4]

Word family

• scos
• scosătură
• scoatere

Related words

• scutura
• Aromanian scot
• Latin excutiō

Usage notes

Common idioms include a scoate ochii cuiva “to keep reproaching someone” and a o scoate la capăt “to manage, to succeed”.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 812
3. ^ 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. scoate
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 991
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 80
7. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 932
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2998
9. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 358
10. ^ 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 7:2
11. ^ 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. scoate
12. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. scoate
13. ^ Chițimia, I. C.; Toma, Stela (eds.) (1984–1989), Crestomație de literatură română veche, 2 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, p. 124
14. ^ 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 36:6
15. ^ 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. scoate
16. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Genesis 4:14