kurtarmak

Turkish

Etymology

From Ottoman Turkish قورتارمق (kurtarmak, “to save, rescue, disentangle, set free”), from Proto-Turkic *kurt-gar- (“to rescue”), causative of the unattested stem *kurt-. Cognate to kurtulmak (“to be saved”) passive form of the same root.

Cognate with Old Uyghur (qurtɣar-, “to rescue”), Karakhanid (qutɣarmāq, “to rescue”), Azerbaijani qurtarmaq (“to rescue”), Bashkir ҡотҡарыу (qotqarıw, “to save”), Chuvash хӑтарма (hăt̬arma, “to save”), Kazakh құтқару (qūtqaru, “to save”), Kyrgyz куткаруу (kutkaruu, “to save, rescue”), Turkmen gutarmak (“to end, finish”), Uyghur قۇتقازماق (qutqazmaq, “to rescue”), Uzbek qutqarmoq.

Verb

kurtarmak (third-person singular simple present kurtarır)

1. (transitive) to save, rescue (to help someone or something to survive); to disentangle, set free

   Kardeşimi kurtardılar. ― They rescued my brother/sister.

   • 1930 January 1, “Bu sigortaciler hâlâ çalışiyorlar”, in Yarın, page 1:

     Bu para ile Hilali Ahmer cemiyeti (bir kaç bin) fukara ve veremliyi kurtarabilir.

     With this money the Red Crescent society can help thousands of the poor and consumptive.

2. (transitive) to relieve, free, to release (someone) from or of a difficulty, unwanted task, responsibility etc.

Conjugation

Related terms

References

• Clauson, Gerard (1972) “kurtğar-”, in An Etymological Dictionary of pre-thirteenth-century Turkish, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 649
• Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–) “kurtarmak”, in Nişanyan Sözlük