wcale

Kashubian

Etymology

Borrowed from Polish wcale. By surface analysis, univerbation of w +‎ cale.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈft͡sa.lɛ/
• Rhymes: -alɛ
• Syllabification: wca‧le

Particle

wcale

1. (in the negative) not at all

   Synonym: cale

2. quite, rather, completely, wholly

   Synonym: cale

Further reading

• Eùgeniusz Gòłąbk (2011) “wcale”, in Słownik Polsko-Kaszubski / Słowôrz Pòlskò-Kaszëbsczi‎^[1]
• “wcale”, in Internetowi Słowôrz Kaszëbsczégò Jãzëka [Internet Dictionary of the Kashubian Language], Fundacja Kaszuby, 2022

Polish

Etymology

Univerbation of w +‎ cale. First attested in the 17th century. Compare English at all.

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /ˈft͡sa.lɛ/

• (Middle Polish) IPA^(key): /ˈft͡sa.lɛ/

• Audio 1:

  (file)

• Audio 2:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -alɛ
• Syllabification: wca‧le

Particle

wcale

1. (in the negative) not at all

   Synonyms: nijak, w ogóle

   Wcale nie jestem głodny. ― I'm not hungry at all.

2. (in the negative) not in the slightest

   Near-synonym: bynajmniej

3. (colloquial) quite, rather, completely, wholly

   Synonyms: całkiem, dość

Derived terms

proverbs

• lepiej późno niż wcale

 

Descendants

• → Kashubian: wcale
• → Silesian: wcale

Trivia

According to Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990), wcale is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 18 times in scientific texts, 4 times in news, 19 times in essays, 31 times in fiction, and 53 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 125 times, making it the 480th most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.

Further reading

• wcale in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• wcale in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• Samuel Bogumił Linde (1807–1814) “wcale”, in Słownik języka polskiego
• Aleksander Zdanowicz (1861) “wcale”, in Słownik języka polskiego, Wilno 1861
• J. Karłowicz, A. Kryński, W. Niedźwiedzki, editors (1919), “wcale”, in Słownik języka polskiego (in Polish), volume 7, Warsaw, page 485

Silesian

Etymology

Borrowed from Polish wcale.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈft͡sa.lɛ/
• Rhymes: -alɛ
• Syllabification: wca‧le

Particle

wcale

1. (in the negative) not at all
2. quite, rather, completely, wholly

Further reading

• wcale in silling.org