scutura

Forms

scutura (third-person singular present scutură, past participle scuturat, third-person subjunctive scuture) 1st conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excutulō (“to shake out”), a verb formed on Latin excutiō (“to shake out, knock out”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Meyer, Candrea, Pușcariu, Tiktin and the REW all derive it this way, Ciorănescu reports.^[4] Nocentini calls the Vulgar Latin verb an iterative of the Latin verb.^[6]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian ascutur or scutur, and Megleno-Romanian scutur.^[4][7][8][1] Its closest Romance relatives are in Italy: Italian scotolare “to scutch (flax or hemp)”, and the Abruzzese and Calabrian forms that Ciorănescu cites.^[4][6][1] Ciorănescu compares scoate “to take out”, which comes from the same Latin verb.^[4][9] Ungureanu lists further southern Italian and Sardinian forms, in line with his view that Romanian continues a late, regional spoken Latin.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (early 16th century): scuturat in Psalm 135:15, where God shook off Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea, and scuture in Psalm 98:1.^[2][11] Tiktin dates the word from the Psaltirea Scheiană, at the same psalm.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense is to move something sharply to and fro, or to knock it, so that something falls off or out of it: dust from clothes, fruit from a tree, ash from a pipe.^[5][3] From this come “to dust, to tidy the house” and, reflexive, “to shed leaves or petals”, a sense that Eminescu used of flowers falling dead.^[5][3] Shaking out a purse gave “to take all someone's money” (a scutura punga cuiva), and a scutura cojocul cuiva “to shake out someone's coat” means to beat him.^[5][2][3] Fever “shakes” a person (îl scutură frigurile), and the reflexive “to shudder” followed.^[5][3]

Tiktin notes an obsolete sense “to discuss a matter”, formed on the model of Latin discutiō, in Cantemir: „Tot felul de voroavă cu dânsul am scuturat” “I discussed every kind of matter with him”.^[5] Regionally the verb also means to scutch hemp, to thresh, and to clear straw from the threshing floor.^[2] In Aromanian the participle scuturat means “tall and slender”.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – scuturat and scuture in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2][11]
• 1570 – scuture in Coresi's psalter.^[13]
• 1649 – scutur in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[14]
• 1688 – scuturați “shake off” (the dust from your feet) in the Bucharest Bible.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To shake or knock an object so that something falls off or out of it.^[3][1]
2. (reflexive) To shake off dust, mud or snow;^[3][1] (intransitive) to tidy the house, to dust the furniture.^[3][1]
3. (transitive, figurative) To throw off or get rid of something;^[3] (reflexive) to free oneself of something unpleasant.^[3]
4. (reflexive and transitive) To lose or make lose leaves, petals or fruit;^[3][2] (reflexive) to fall off.^[3][2]
5. (transitive and intransitive) To shake hard to and fro, to jolt;^[3][1] a scutura mâna cuiva “to shake someone's hand”;^[3][1] (reflexive) to shudder.^[3][1]
6. (transitive, figurative, colloquial) To criticise or scold harshly.^[3][16]

Word family

• scutur
• scuturătoare
• scuturătură

Related words

• scoate
• Aromanian ascutur

Usage notes

A scutura pe cineva de bani or a scutura punga cuiva means “to take all someone's money”, and îl scutură frigurile “he has a fit of fever”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 2, 834
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 996
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. scutura
5. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. scutura
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 164
8. ^ 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, 154
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3000
10. ^ Ungureanu, Dan (2024), Istoria limbii române, Chișinău: Cartier, p. 359
11. ^ 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 135:15
12. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 936
13. ^ 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 45:9
14. ^ 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. scutur
15. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 10:14
16. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. scutura