farina

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English farina,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin farīna (“ground corn, flour, meal”),^{[5][6][7][2][8]} from far (“husked wheat, emmer; grain, flour”),^[5][7][8] from Proto-Italic *fars (“flour”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhars-.^[5] Klein explains the Latin noun as standing for an earlier *farrīna.^[8] Etymonline names as cognates Old Irish bairgen (“bread, loaf”), Welsh bara (“bread”), Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐍂𐌹𐌶𐌴𐌹𐌽𐍃 (barizeins, “of barley”), Old Norse barr (“grain”) and Old English bere (“barley”),^[5][8] and Barnhart and Klein connect the word with barley,^[7][8] and Etymonline also reports de Vaan's suggestion that the word may be a loan from a language outside Indo-European.^[5] The OED compares French farine.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Flour or meal: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of De Proprietatibus Rerum, according to Barnhart,^[7] and other dictionaries also date the word to the Middle English period.^{[4][3][9][10]} The OED and Etymonline have no such early record and begin with "dust, a powdery substance" in 1707,^[6][5] and Collins dates the word to the 18th century.^[11]

Semantic evolution

From the Latin sense of ground grain, the word was extended to any powdery substance in the early 18th century.^[4][6] Scientific writers then gave it special uses: pollen in botany from 1721,^[6] a fine white powder from cereals or the potato, that is, starch, in chemistry from 1813,^[6] and a mealy powder on some insects from 1828.^[6] The pollen sense is no longer technical.^[9] It now names especially a fine meal for puddings or breakfast cereal,^[9] with the British use for potato starch.^[11][9] The adjective farinaceous is from 1646, at first "covered with fine dust" and later "resembling meal".^[7]

Timeline

• before 1398 – flour or meal.^[7]
• 1707 – a powdery substance, dust.^[6][5]
• 1721 – in botany, pollen.^[6]
• 1800 – the flour or meal of a cereal, nut or starchy root.^[6]
• 1813 – in chemistry, a fine white powder from cereals or the potato; starch.^[6]
• 1828 – in entomology, a mealy powder on some insects.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Flour or fine meal made from a cereal grain, nut or starchy root, used especially for puddings or as a breakfast cereal.^[11][9][6]
2. Coarsely ground endosperm of wheat other than durum, free of fine flour and bran.^[9]
3. (chiefly British) Starch, especially from the potato.^[11][9]
4. Any powdery substance.^[4][6][9]
5. (botany) Pollen.^[6][9]
6. (entomology) A mealy powder found on some insects.^[6]

Related words

• farinaceous
• farinose
• barley
• barn
• farrago
• confarreation

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins