aglio

Forms

aglio m (plural agli, diminutive agliétto)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ālium (“garlic”), also spelt allium, the form found in inscriptions from the 1st century AD.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The word is pan-Romance: French ail, Occitan alh, Catalan all, Spanish ajo, Portuguese alho, Sardinian azu and Romanian ai.^[3][6][7] The DÉRom reconstructs a Proto-Romance neuter: every Romance variety has a masculine outcome, and feminine forms from the neuter plural occur in a central area that includes Italian.^[8] The dialect forms fill some twenty columns of the LEI.^[2]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown.^[5][2][9] Its only comparison is a Greek gloss Ancient Greek ἄλλην (állēn) for a vegetable “among the Italians”, so Nocentini takes it, like many plant names, to be a word of the pre-Latin substrate.^[3][5] De Vaan mentions a derivation from āla (“wing”), the bulb being split into “wings”, and Kroonen a borrowing related to Ancient Greek ἄγλις (áglis).^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The plural ali is recorded in 1233 in the accounts of Mattasalà, and agli at the end of the 13th century in a toll schedule.^[2] The TLIO's first record is the Neapolitan Regimen sanitatis of the 13th century, for the plant whose bulb seasons food.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used aglio for a thing of no value, “nothing”.^[10] Passavanti repeats that leeks, onions and garlic cause bad dreams, and Boccaccio tells of a man who sends a bunch of fresh garlic from his garden as a gift.^[11] Cennini makes a mordant for gilding from crushed garlic.^[11]

Derivatives followed: agliata, a garlic sauce, at the end of the 13th century, perhaps through French or Provençal, aglietto in the second half of the 14th century and agliaceo “garlicky” in 1925.^[3][12][2] Many other species of the genus are named aglio, such as aglio orsino, wild garlic.^[13][4]

Timeline

• 1233 – The plural ali is recorded in Mattasalà's accounts.^[2]
• Late 13th century – Agli appears in a toll schedule;^[2][3] agliata is recorded.^[2][3]
• Second half of the 14th century – Aglietto is recorded.^[3]
• 1925 – Agliaceo appears in the Zingarelli dictionary.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. garlic, the plant Allium sativum.^[4][14][15]
2. The bulb of this plant, divided into cloves and used in cooking and folk medicine.^[4][14][15]
3. Any plant of the genus Allium; with a capital, the genus itself.^[4][14][13]
4. (colloquial) Nothing, in non valere un aglio, to be worth nothing.^[4][16][10]

Word family

• agliaceo
• agliata
• aglietto
• agliaio
• agliaria
• aglina

Related words

• Latin ālium
• French ail

Usage notes

The whole bulb is a testa or capo d'aglio, a clove a spicchio.^[4][13] Spaghetti aglio e olio are dressed with garlic and oil.^[15][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
11. ^ 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, 260
12. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 29
13. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana