Bibbia

Forms

Bibbia f^[1] Old Italian forms include bibia, biblia and blibia.^[2] The lowercase bibbia, plural bibbie, is used for a copy of the book and in the figurative senses.^[1][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin biblia, the Christian Latin word.^[4][5][6][7] Its feminine singular was taken from the neuter plural Ancient Greek βιβλία (biblía, “books”), plural of βιβλίον (biblíon, “book”), a diminutive of βίβλος (bíblos, “papyrus; book”).^[4][5][8][1] The LEI explains that the Greeks called the fibres of the papyrus plant βίβλος (bíblos) or βύβλος (búblos) after the Phoenician city of Byblos, the main market for the Egyptian material.^[9]

In Jewish Greek writing the plural meant the whole of Scripture from the 1st century AD, probably a semantic calque of the Hebrew word for “book”;^[9] Christian writers from Origen to Chrysostom extended it to the Christian canon in the 3rd to 6th centuries.^[9] In this period the Greek word entered Christian Latin with the Latin stress on the third syllable from the end.^[9] Church writers avoided it as a vulgar Greek word: the feminine biblia is recorded only from the 12th century.^[9] The word came down through the Church and is learned or semi-learned in every Romance language: French bible, Occitan bibla, Catalan bíblia, Spanish biblia, Portuguese bíblia and Romanian biblie.^[8][9][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The LEI cites Old Bolognese bibia in a Camaldoli register of 1227.^[9] The TLIO's first record is a Florentine document of 1288–89, and DELI's is Bono Giamboni, before 1292, for the collection of the Old and New Testaments: E però dice la bibbia, che al principio fu divisa la chiarezza da le tenebre.^{[2][5][4][10]}

Semantic evolution

Before 1342 Domenico Cavalca uses the word for a manuscript or printed copy of the Bible.^[4] Because the Bible is a very long book, hard and tedious for the unlearned, bibbia came to mean a long and boring speech or story: the LEI dates this to Machiavelli in 1527, and DELI cites Aretino's scrivere una bibbia for a long letter (1536) and Firenzuola (before 1543).^[9][4] Prati glosses it as a long, rambling piece of writing.^[11] The sense of an authoritative work or author regarded as unquestionably true is recorded from Cesarotti in 1808.^[9]

The dialects developed these senses further: Venetian bibia (1829) and Brescian bìbia (1817) mean a slow, dithering person, with the Venetian verb bibiar “to dawdle”.^[4][9] In the Marche a bibbiaro was a pedlar of Protestant Bibles in the 19th century.^[4] The adjective biblico followed in the 18th century.^[5]

Timeline

• 1227 – Old Bolognese bibia is recorded.^[9]
• 1288–1289 – A Florentine document has the word.^[2][5]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses bibbia for Scripture.^[4]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses it for a copy of the Bible.^[4]
• 1527 – Machiavelli uses it for a long, boring speech.^[9]
• 1536 – Aretino writes scrivere una bibbia.^[4]
• 1808 – Cesarotti uses it for an authoritative work.^[9]
• 1829 – Boerio records Venetian bibia “dawdler”.^[4]

Meanings

Proper noun

1. The Bible: the sacred books of Judaism and Christianity, the Old and the New Testament.^{[6][12][3][7]}
2. A copy of the Bible, the volume that contains it: una Bibbia con la copertina di cuoio.^[6][12][2]

Noun

1. (figurative, written lowercase bibbia) A work or author held to be of fundamental authority in a field: quel manuale è la bibbia dei cuochi.^{[6][12][3][1]}
2. (figurative, lowercase) An idea or statement accepted as unquestionable truth.^[6][7][1]
3. (colloquial, lowercase, uncommon) A long and tedious piece of writing or speech.^[12][7][1]

Word family

• biblico

Related words

• biblio-
• Latin biblia
• Ancient Greek βιβλίον (biblíon)
• French bible

Usage notes

The religious sense is written with a capital, the figurative senses usually with a lowercase initial.^[6][3][7] Carta bibbia is the thin paper used for bibles and dictionaries.^[6] DEI keeps fare la bibbia “to grumble, to bore with sermons” as a separate entry, but DELI and the LEI derive these senses from the Bible itself.^[8][4][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 508
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 5, 1462
10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 214
11. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 140
12. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier