ascella

Forms

ascella f (plural ascelle)^[1] Old Italian also has the plural Old Italian scelle.^[2] Dialect forms include Genoese ascella, Piedmontese assella and Milanese sèlla.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *axella, a form of Latin axilla (“armpit”) with the suffix changed.^[4][1][5][6] GRADIT and Treccani name the Late Latin variant ascella, and Isidore of Seville records ascillas as a name some people used for the armpits.^[7][8][9] DELI, Zingarelli and Gabrielli give the classical word alone.^[10][11][12]

The Latin word lives on in Gallo-Romance and Italy: Old French asaile (1165) and modern French aisselle, Old Occitan aissela, and Catalan exela (about 1270).^[3] The same word gave Spanish islilla, which names the collarbone.^[4]

The Latin word was a diminutive of āla (“wing”), which goes back to an older form with ⟨x⟩, Latin *axla.^[13][1][14] The same pattern links māxilla (“jaw”) with māla (“cheek”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Dante's Inferno, where the monster Geryon has due branche ... pilose infin l'ascelle, “two paws hairy up to the armpits”.^[9][10][2] The sense is the hollow under the joint of the arm and the shoulder, as today.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word could also mean the same as ala, a wing.^[2] In the dialects of southern Italy, as far north as a line from Ancona to the Colli Albani, the native word still means a bird's wing or a fish's fin, as Latin ala meant both wing and armpit.^[3] Lombard singulars such as séya were rebuilt from the plural, which was used far more often, and in central dialects the word was blended with pinna “feather, fin”.^[3]

The medical term vena ascellare goes back to Medieval Latin ascellata vena, used by Constantine the African before 1087, and Italian vena asselare appears in 1474.^[3][10] The botanical sense, the angle between a leaf stalk and its stem, is a learned use of the 18th century.^[3][10]

The figurative phrase stare con le mani sotto le ascelle, to sit with one's hands under one's armpits, means to idle.^[8][15]

Timeline

• c. 1313 – Dante uses ascelle in the Inferno.^[3][10]
• 1474 – Vena asselare appears in a medical text.^[10]
• 1522 – Sicilian xilla is recorded in Valla's dictionary.^[3]
• 1797 – Ascellare is used in botany.^[10]
• 1960 – Sottoascella is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The armpit, the hollow under the joint of the arm and the shoulder: Teneva il giornale stretto sotto l'ascella.^[7][16][11]
2. (botany) The axil, the upper angle between a leaf stalk and the stem it grows from.^[7][16][17]
3. (figurative) Body odour.^[1]

Word family

• ascellare
• sottoascella

Related words

• ala
• Latin axilla
• French aisselle

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 e f g h Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 3, 2694
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 315
6. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
7. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ 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, 719
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
17. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse