sec

Forms

sec m or n (feminine singular seacă, plural seci)^[1] Old and regional variants are săc and the feminine sacă, and an old feminine plural sece stands beside seci.^[2] Dosoftei writes „O mână direaptă sacă îndată o dezlegă din sacăciune” “at once he freed a withered right hand from its withering”.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin siccus (“dry”), a word kept across the Romance languages.^[4][2][5][1] Pușcariu (no. 1569) and the REW (no. 7897) list it among the inherited words.^[4] Wiktionary traces the Latin adjective to Proto-Indo-European *seyk-.^[1] De Vaan finds that the cognates point to a root *sek- (“to dry up”), but the Latin form cannot be derived from it regularly, so its etymology remains uncertain.^[6]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian sec, Megleno-Romanian seac and Istro-Romanian sec.^[4][7] Its Romance cognates include Italian secco, Occitan sec, French sec, Catalan sec, Spanish seco and Portuguese seco.^[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1421, in the Slavonic-Romanian charters.^[3] In Romanian texts the word appears in the 17th century: the New Testament of 1648 speaks of a mînă seacă “withered hand”, and the same text has the dry places through which an unclean spirit wanders.^[9][10] MDA2's first record is much later, a medical booklet of 1828.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is “without water”: a river or spring that has run dry, land that is arid and so yields little.^[5][2] From it came “empty, hollow”, as in nucă seacă “a nut without a kernel” and pușcă seacă “an unloaded gun”, and “lacking in something”, as in sec de noroc “out of luck”.^[3][11] An empty head gave the figurative sense “stupid”: cap sec “a dull head”, and as a noun sec “a blockhead”.^[3][4] Of limbs the old language used it for “withered, paralysed”, a sense recorded in Moldavia and Transylvania.^[9] In Transylvania it also means “skinny”, a sense Ciorănescu compares with the linguistic atlas.^[4]

Used as a noun, sec came to mean the Lenten diet without meat or dairy: a mânca de sec “to eat lenten food” and lăsatul secului, the last day before the fast.^[8][12] Modern Romanian added senses of manner and sound: sunet sec “a short sound without resonance” and, of people, “curt, cold”.^[5] Ciorănescu derives from Romanian a Hungarian dialect word szék “ford” and szécita “drought”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1421 – the first record, in the Slavonic-Romanian charters.^[3]
• 1648 – mînă seacă “withered hand” in the New Testament.^[9]
• 1688 – seci in the Bucharest Bible, as in Matthew 12:43.^[13]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses Séc with Latin siccus and aridus.^[14]
• 1828 – MDA2's first record, in a medical booklet.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. dry: without water, dried up; of land, arid and unproductive;^[5][2][1] tuse seacă “a dry cough”.^[5][2][1]
2. empty, hollow: nucă seacă “a nut without a kernel”;^[5] a înghiți în sec “to swallow with nothing in one's mouth; to have to give up a wish”.^[5]
3. (popular) Of a limb: withered, paralysed: mână seacă.^[5][9]
4. de sec: lenten, without meat or dairy.^[5][8]
5. (figurative) Without content or sense, useless;^[5] în sec “in vain”.^[5]
6. (figurative) Dull, stupid; often as a noun.^[5][1]
7. (figurative) Of people and their manner: curt, cold, without warmth.^[5]
8. (regional, Transylvania) Skinny.^[4][1]

Word family

• secătură
• secătui
• secăciu

Related words

• seca
• secetă
• secetos
• Aromanian sec
• Latin siccus

Usage notes

As a neuter noun sec means the fast itself: zi de sec “a day of abstinence” and lăsata secului, the eve of the fast.^[8][12] Timbru sec is an embossed stamp without ink.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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, 837
3. ^ 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. sec
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. sec
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 997
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 262
8. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1182
9. ^ a b c d Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 260
10. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sec
11. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 580
12. ^ a b Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. sec
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Matthew 12:43
14. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 440