abrostine

Forms

abrostine m (plural abrostini)^[1] Old Italian has abrostino, the usual form in the TLIO and DELI, beside the Latinised abrostinum of a Florentine glossary.^[2][3] Tuscan has the variants abrostino, abrosco, abrostolo and abrostano, and with another initial raverusto and averusto.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin labrusca (“wild vine”), short for vitis labrusca (“wild vine”), with the initial ⟨l-⟩ dropped because speakers took it for the article ⟨l’⟩.^{[3][6][7][8][9]} The ending is not explained the same way: Nocentini speaks of an added suffix, and GRADIT starts from a derived Vulgar Latin *labrūsinaca.^[6][10] Latin also had labruscum for the fruit of the wild vine.^[4][11]

The same Latin word gave Romanian lăurușcă, Sardinian agrustu in Logudorese, and Spanish labrusca and Portuguese labrusca.^[5][6] The variant lambrusca gave Italian lambrusca, Catalan lambrusca and Old French lambrois, from which comes French lambris (“panelling”).^[5]

The OLD and Nocentini call the origin of the Latin word unknown.^[12][6] DELI calls it a Mediterranean word.^[3] DEI and the GDLI think it Ligurian, from a Mediterranean stem meaning “stone, rock”, so that the wild vine would be the vine of the rocks.^[4][11] Wiktionary reports ancient explanations from labrum (“lip; edge”), either for the sour taste or for the field edges where the plant grows.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are Florentine: the late 13th-century translation of the Antidotarium Nicolai lists fiori d’abrostino, the flowers of the wild vine, and in 1310 Zucchero Bencivenni's Santà names wine made from abrostini, sour unripe grapes.^[2][3] A 14th-century Tuscan translation of Jacopo da Cessole explains the name by the edge (labbro) of the roads where the wild vine grew.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word meant the wild vine and its small, sour fruit.^[2] Agricultural writers of the 16th century recommended adding the grapes to weak wines to give them colour and strength: Bernardo Davanzati, who has the form abrostine (before 1606), calls the abrostino the dressing and medicine of fat, weak wines.^[3][13] Tommaseo still gives abrostine and abrostino as names of the wild vine and notes that its juice was used to colour other wines.^[14]

Later the name passed to the American vine Vitis labrusca, brought to Europe, whose small dark grapes are sold in Italy as uva americana or uva fragola.^[13][15][9] In this sense GRADIT marks the word as technical, and the old sense “wild vine” as archaic.^[10][15]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – A Florentine translation of the Antidotarium Nicolai has abrostino.^[2]
• 1310 – Zucchero Bencivenni uses abrostini for sour wild grapes.^[2][3]
• Before 1606 – Bernardo Davanzati uses the form abrostine.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) The fox grape (Vitis labrusca), a vite from North America grown in Europe, also called lambrusca.^[15][9][8]
2. The small dark grape of this vine.^[10][7][8]
3. (archaic) The wild vine.^[10][15][7]

Related words

• lambrusca
• Latin labrusca

Usage notes

Abrostino is an older and still accepted variant.^[15][16][8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 14
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 1, 52
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli