alosa

Forms

alosa f (plural alose)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin alausa (“shad”), a Late Latin name first recorded in Ausonius in the 4th century for a fish of the Moselle.^[2][3][4] The Latin word lives on in French alose (from about 1180), Occitan alauzo and Spanish alosa, and it passed into Germanic as Old High German alosa and modern Alse.^[4][5][6]

The LEI counts the Italian word among the inherited continuations of the Latin one.^[4] Devoto–Oli and Zingarelli instead bring it through the French word, and Battisti and Alessio, who first find it in Guicciardini, do the same.^[7][8][3] Prati also derived it from French, and took the form Sicilian alosa of Sicily, recorded in 1522, to be probably of Spanish origin.^[9] GRADIT and Treccani connect the modern word with the scientific genus name ⟨Alosa⟩, itself from the Late Latin word.^[6][10]

The Latin name is probably Gaulish, Gaulish *alausa.^[2][1][4] It has no known Celtic cognates, so Wiktionary allows that it may come from an older substrate.^[1] Battisti and Alessio thought it probably Ligurian, from a root ⟨al-⟩ “white”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Fiore, a Florentine text of 1280–1310, in the plural alose.^[2][11] It names the shad, an edible bony fish of the herring family, silver with a blue-green back.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

After the Fiore the word is next found in Sicily (Scobar 1519, Valla 1522) and in Guicciardini from 1540, and Florio entered it in his dictionary of 1598.^[4][3] Prati found it as a scientific term in 1874 and lists chéppia and làccia as other names of the fish.^[9]

The word is alive in the south: Neapolitan has alosa and lòsa, Calabrian lósa, and Sicilian alosa, aluosa and losa.^[4] In Verona it names a lake sardine.^[4] Sicilian dialects made it part of phrases: at Licata lingua d'alosa “shad's tongue” is said of someone who talks without letting others speak and gossips about everyone, and èssiri arridduttu comu na resca d'alosa “to be reduced like a shad's bone” means to be dreadfully thin.^[4]

In modern zoology Alosa with a capital is the genus that includes the shad and the agone.^[6][7] The landlocked form of the northern Italian lakes, called agone on Lake Maggiore and Lake Como and sardena on Lake Garda, is smaller than the sea fish.^[10]

Timeline

• 4th century – Ausonius records Latin alausa as a fish of the Moselle.^[3][4]
• About 1180 – French alose is first recorded.^[4]
• 1280–1310 – The Fiore has Italian alose.^[2][11]
• 1519 – Sicilian alosa appears in Scobar's dictionary.^[4]
• 1540 – Guicciardini uses alosa.^[3][4]
• 1598 – Florio enters the word in his Italian–English dictionary.^[4]
• 1874 – The word is recorded as a scientific term.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) The shad: an edible fish of the herring family, silver with a blue-green back, that lives in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic and swims up rivers in spring to spawn; also called cheppia.^{[6][7][12][8]}
2. (zoology) Alosa, with a capital: the genus of the Clupeidae that includes the shad and the agone.^[6][7]

Related words

• French alose
• Latin alausa

Usage notes

Alosa finta is the name of one species.^[6] Other names of the fish are cheppia and, regionally, laccia or alaccia.^[12][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 142
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 1464
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 43
10. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
12. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse