uscat

Forms

uscat m or n (feminine singular uscată, masculine plural uscați, feminine/neuter plural uscate)^[1]

Etymology

Used as an adjective and a noun, it is the past participle from Romanian usca (“to dry”).^[2][3][1] MDA2, Pușcariu and the REW trace the verb to Vulgar Latin *exsūcō (“to dry, squeeze out the juice”);^[4][5] Ciorănescu prefers *ustĭcō, from Latin ustum (“burnt”), since the Latin verb for “to burn” also meant “to dry”.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's earliest date for the word is 1439, before the first Romanian texts.^[6] In Romanian texts MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[2] Coresi's psalter of 1570 has the noun uscatul “the dry land” in Psalm 94:5, and Coresi elsewhere tells of crossing the Red Sea as on dry ground, „ca pre pământ uscat”.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The adjective first meant “without water or moisture”, of land, wood, hay and food; from this came “arid, barren” of land and “rainless” of weather, ger uscat “a frost without snow”.^[8][2] Of living things it means “withered, dead” for plants and “thin, wasted” for people, and the Gospel's „mâna uscată” is a withered hand.^[3][6] Figurative senses describe a dry cough, eyes without tears, a hard voice.^[3]

The noun “dry land”, as opposed to the sea, is in the 16th-century psalters and in the Bible of 1688, at Genesis 1:9–10.^[7][9][6] Set phrases include a vorbi verzi și uscate “to talk nonsense” and a se zbate ca peștele pe uscat “to struggle desperately”.^[6][3]

Timeline

• 1439 – the earliest date Tiktin gives.^[6]
• c. 1500–1520 – in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[2]
• 1570 – the noun uscatul “dry land” in Coresi's psalter.^[7]
• 16th century – pământ uscat “dry ground” in Coresi.^[8]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic words for “dry”.^[10]
• 1688 – uscatul “the dry land” in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. dry: without moisture; of weather, rainless; of land, barren; of the mouth or throat, parched; of eyes, tearless; of skin or hair, lacking oil; of a cough, without phlegm.^[3][2][1]
2. (figurative) Of a voice or sound, harsh, stiff.^[3]
3. Of food, preserved by drying, dried: prune uscate “prunes”.^[3][1]
4. Of people, thin, lean; of parts of the body, withered.^[3]
5. Of plants, leaves or flowers, without sap; dead, wilted.^[3][2]

Noun

1. land, dry land: the earth's surface not covered by the sea;^[3][6] a se zbate ca peștele pe uscat “to struggle with great difficulties”;^[3][6] a fi dracul pe uscat “to be a crafty devil”.^[3][6]
2. (nautical, with the article, uscatul) A wind blowing from the land.^[3]

Related words

• usca

Usage notes

DEX has a separate uscat “drying”, the supine used as a verbal noun (uscatul rufelor “the drying of the laundry”), first recorded in CADE in 1926.^[3][2][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 1397
3. ^ 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. 1177
4. ^ a b Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1396
5. ^ a b 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. usca
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. uscat
7. ^ a b c 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 94:5
8. ^ a b c d Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. uscat
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 1:9
10. ^ 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. uscat