găsi

Where it comes from

Unknown.

Has been linked to Proto-Slavic *gasiti (“to extinguish”) but this is semantically unusual. Even other Indo-European cognate terms like Lithuanian gesýti (“to extinguish”), Sanskrit जासयति (jāsáyati, “to extinguish, to exhaust”) and Ancient Greek σβέννῡμι (sbénnūmi, “to extinguish”) thoroughly continue the same sense.

* A possible semantic explanation may be very hypothetically attempted through the conception of search being conducted, within the context of pastoral and agricultural life, more frequently for cattle that has gone astray in particular at dusk or dawn and, hence, being searched for with the aid of torches, leading to the characterization of retrieval as extinction of the torches employed.

* Alternatively and less likely, extinction could even more vaguely refer to the urge for search having been extinguished but those metaphors of perceived needs are, instead, very unlikely.

Ciorănescu dismisses origins in Albanian gjëig (“to find out”), Serbo-Croatian gaziti (“to wade”) and Gothic gasihts (“look”) and suggests the possibility of the Slavic *gasiti (“to extinguish”) having been confused with *desiti (“to find; to encounter”).