terco

Attested from the fifteenth century, probably cognate with Italian tirchio and Catalan enterch (“stiff, rigid”). Several farther etymologies have been suggested[1]: a shared proto-Romance word from Proto-Celtic *terkos (“scarce, meagre”), compare Irish tearc (“meagre”) and Welsh taerc); a derivation from Italian pirchio (“stingy”, dialectal) +‎ tirato (“avaricious”)[2]; or, reversing the usual derivation, from (rare) entercar (whence entercarse), syncopated from (rare, 16th. c) *enternegar, from Latin internecō (“I 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.

• IPA^(key): /ˈterko/, [ˈt̪erko]

terco (feminine singular terca, masculine plural tercos, feminine plural tercas)

1. stubborn, obstinate

   Synonyms: obstinado, porfiado, testarudo

• entercarse

• “terco” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.