terco

Attested from the fifteenth century, probably cognate with Italian tirchio and Catalan enterc (“stiff, rigid”). Several farther etymologies have been suggested: a shared proto-Romance word from Proto-Celtic *terkos (“scarce, meagre”), compare Irish tearc (“meagre”)); a derivation from Italian pirchio (“stingy”, dialectal) + tirato (“avaricious”); or, reversing the usual derivation, from rare entercar (whence entercarse), syncopated from rare 16th. century *enternegar, from Latin internecō (“to slaughter”); or from Latin tricae (“trivia”), via a verb derived in Vulgar Latin. As the word has no mediaeval attestation, a southern European borrowing from dialectal Italian may be most likely; of the proto-Romance theories, derivation from internecō is phonetically the easiest.