scuipa

Forms

scuipa (third-person singular present scuipă, past participle scuipat, third-person subjunctive scuipe), first conjugation^[1] The oldest form is scuipi, found in Coresi: „Scuipi la pământ și făcu tină de scuipit” “he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle”.^[2][3] Regional variants are many: scupi, șchiopi, știpi in the Banat, and in Moldavia stupi and stuchi.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *scupiō (“to spit”), as DEX, MDA2 and the DLR give it, compared with Latin expuō (“to spit out”).^[5][4][2] Ciorănescu traces it to Latin cōnspuō (“to spit upon”), with the usual loss of /n/ before /s/ in *cospuō and a metathesis to *scupuō, whence the verb above.^[3] Wiktionary gives a similar chain through Late Latin *exconspuō.^[1]

The explanations vary widely, and Ciorănescu lists them: *excuppō (Paris), *esconspiō (Cornu, Pușcariu, Tiktin), the Latin verb for “to spit out” (Cihac), an imitative *scuppiō (Meyer-Lübke and the REW), *stupiō (Densusianu), *sputō (Meyer) and *conspō (Pascu).^[3] Aromanian has ascuchiu, which Pascu derives from the same Latin verb as Ciorănescu.^[6][1] The Romance parallels are Spanish escupir, Portuguese cuspir and Old French escopir.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 dates the first record to about 1550, a text printed in Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni.^[4] Tiktin's first record is a Gospel text of 1551–1553, at Matthew 26:67.^[7] Coresi has the older form scuipi.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Besides the plain act of spitting, the verb took on the sense of spitting at someone in contempt, which the Gospel passages show, and figuratively of showing scorn.^[7][5] Transitively it means to spit something out, to cough up phlegm or blood;^[5] a-și scuipa plămânii “to cough one's lungs out” is said both of the consumptive and of someone who exhausts himself in vain.^[5] Figuratively it means to throw something out with force.^[5] The derivatives are scuipat “spittle” and scuipătoare “spittoon”, in slang “mouth”.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1550 – the first record, in a text of Hasdeu's Cuvente den bătrâni.^[4]
• 1551-1553 – a Gospel text, Matthew 26:67.^[7]
• 1581 – scuipi “he spat” in Coresi's homilies.^[2]
• 1688 – scuipând “spitting” in the Bucharest Bible (Matthew 27:30).^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To spit: to expel saliva from the mouth.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To spit at someone or something in contempt; figuratively, to show one's scorn for someone.^[5]
3. (transitive) To spit out; to cough up, expectorate: a scuipa sânge “to cough up blood”.^[5]
4. (figurative) To throw something out with force.^[5]

Word family

• scuipat
• scuipătoare

Related words

• stupi
• Aromanian ascuchiu

Usage notes

A-și scuipa plămânii “to cough one's lungs out” is said of people with tuberculosis and of someone who exhausts himself for nothing.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. scuipa
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. scuipa
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 829
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. 995
6. ^ 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, 43
7. ^ 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. scuipá
8. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Mt 27:30