aragosta

Forms

aragosta f (plural aragoste)^[1] Old Italian has lagosta and lagusta.^[2] Older and regional forms are aligusta and arigusta, and Neapolitan has raoste.^[3][4][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *lacusta, the Vulgar Latin form of Latin locusta (“locust; spiny lobster”).^[5][4][3] DELI, GRADIT and the TLIO start from the classical locusta.^[6][7][2] Latin already used the word for both animals.^[6][3] Nocentini notes that naming a sea creature after a land animal it resembles is a common process.^[5]

The Italian form grew out of the word with the article, a *la lagosta reanalysed as *l'alagosta, and the dissimilation of /l/–/l/ to /l/–/r/.^[5][6][7] DEI adds that the /r/, if it is not due to this dissimilation, points to a region with rhotacism such as Liguria; in central and southern Italy the word is not native, as the softened /g/ shows.^[3] Devoto too sees Genoese sound development in it.^[8] The same Latin word is Occitan langosta, from which French langouste, and Catalan llagosta, Spanish langosta, Portuguese lagosta and Romanian lăcustă.^[5][4] The learned locusta is a doublet.^[1]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown, and even the length of its first vowel varies.^[9][10] De Vaan finds the only similar word in lacerta (“lizard; mackerel”) and thinks that both may come from a language Latin borrowed them from.^[9][1] He rejects Pokorny's derivation from Proto-Indo-European *lek- (“joint, limb”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Florentine document of 1311–13, where the word names the marine crustacean Palinurus vulgaris, also called locusta di mare.^[2] Nocentini also dates it to the early 14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The modern dictionaries date the word much later: GRADIT to Vincenzo Monti's letters in 1807, and DELI to a treatise of 1863 by R. D'Erco on breeding lobsters and spiny lobsters, published at Trieste.^[7][6] In modern Italian it names the large spiny lobster prized for its meat.^[7][11][12] After its shell it also names the orange-red colour, used also as an invariable adjective.^[7][11][12]

Timeline

• 1311–1313 – A Florentine document has aragoste.^[2]
• 1807 – Vincenzo Monti uses the word in his letters.^[7]
• 1863 – R. D'Erco publishes a treatise on breeding astici and aragoste.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) The spiny lobster Palinurus elephas (Palinurus vulgaris), a large marine crustacean without claws and with long antennae, living on rocky coasts of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.^[7][11][12]
2. Loosely, any large crustacean with an orange-red shell and prized meat, as a dish.^[7]
3. The orange-red colour of the cooked shell.^[7][11]

Adjective

1. Of this orange-red colour (invariable): una giacca aragosta.^{[7][11][12][1]}

Related words

• locusta
• astice
• French langouste

Usage notes

Rosso come un'aragosta is said of someone very red in the face or sunburnt.^[7]

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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 266
4. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse