terco

stubborn, stiff-necked, obstinate, willful, dogged, pigheaded, hardheaded, bullheaded

Related: entercarse

Attested from the fifteenth century, several farther etymologies have been suggested: * a shared proto-Romance word of Celtic origin, from Proto-Celtic *terkos (“scarce, meagre”), from Proto-Indo-European *ters- (“dry”), 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”);