< Reconstruction:Latin
Reconstruction:Latin/circa
Latin
Etymology
From Latin circus (“ring, hoop”), either a direct feminization of it or a deverbal of circāre, itself a verb based on circus.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈt͡serka/
Noun
*circa f (plural *circās) (Proto-Western-Romance)
- surrounding structure
Descendants
- Old Catalan: cerca (“enclosure”)
- Catalan: cerca
- → Medieval Latin: cercas (hapax, only found as plural)
- Old French: cerche (“circular structure”)
- Middle French: cerche, cherche
- French: cherche (/ʃ-/ via assimilation), cerce (/-s/ via assimilation or analogy with cerceau)
- → Middle English: sarse, saarce, scarce, sarce, sarche, sars, sarss
- English: searce, sarse
- Scots: search
- Middle French: cerche, cherche
- Old Northern Italian: cerca (“enclosure”)
- Portuguese: cerca (“fence, enclosing wall”)
- Spanish: cerca (“fence, enclosing wall”)
References
- “cerca” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
- “cerce”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
- Joan Coromines; José A. Pascual (1984), “cerco”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), volume II (Ce–F), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 42
- Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002), “cĭrcus”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volume 20: Autres langues, page 708