avellana

Forms

avellana f (plural avellane)^[1] Old Italian also has avillana and vellana.^[2][3] Dialect forms include Piedmontese avlana, Bergamasque olana and Romagnol avulâna.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin abellana (“hazelnut”), short for a phrase with nux (“nut”) meaning “nut of Abella”,^[3][6][1] from Abella, a town in Campania, today Avella in the province of Avellino.^[6][7][1] The Latin word is found as early as Cato, and Servius says the nuts were named after the town, where they abounded.^[4] A phrase in Celsus pairing “Greek nuts” with hazelnuts suggests to the LEI a kind of hazelnut from the Near East, brought by way of Greek Naples.^[4]

The word is Romanian alună, Old Occitan aulana, Catalan avellana, Spanish avellana and Portuguese avelã;^[4][6][5] French aveline came from the south.^[4][6][5] Southern Italy, northern France and Gascony use words from corylus or diminutives of the word for “nut” instead.^[5][8] In the Alpine north the word names the cultivated hazelnut beside the wild one, which marks it, for Meyer-Lübke, as a word of higher culture, and the LEI calls it a market name that travelled with the trade.^[5][4]

The Latin word for “nut” goes back to Proto-Italic *knuks; de Vaan takes it, together with its relatives in Celtic and in Germanic, as a word of non-Indo-European origin.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Belcalzer's Mantuan translation (1299–1309), with nos avellana for the hazelnut.^[2][4] Tuscan texts follow in the 14th century: avillana in the Libro della cura delle malattie and avellana in the translation of Crescenzi.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The Medieval Latin avellanetum, a hazel wood, is still alive in the Codex Cavensis of 868 and 978.^[8] A place in Tuscany was called Avalanito in 1028.^[10] In Italian the word named both the nut and, about 1350, the tree, which was soon called avellano (Giordano da Pisa, 1305–1306, Boccaccio, 1353).^[3][2] Crescenzi's translation describes the nuts as calde e poco secche.^[11]

The standard Italian name for the nut became nocciola, and avellana is now a botanical or rare synonym;^[3][12][10] DELI's first record of the modern spelling is in Mattioli, 1550.^[3][12][10] In heraldry the croce avellana is a cross of four hazelnuts in their husks, joined at the centre, which stood on the orb of the Holy Roman Empire.^[13][14][15]

Timeline

• 868 and 978 – Medieval Latin avellanetum “hazel wood” appears in the Codex Cavensis.^[8]
• 1299–1309 – Belcalzer writes nos avellana.^[2][4]
• 1305–1306 – Giordano da Pisa uses avillano for the tree.^[3]
• About 1350 – The translation of Crescenzi uses avellana for the tree.^[3]
• 1550 – Mattioli uses avellana for the nut.^[3][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) hazelnut, the same as nocciola.^{[12][13][7][1]}
2. (heraldry) A cross of four hazelnuts joined at the centre, found on the orb of the Holy Roman Empire.^{[12][13][14][1]}

Word family

• avellano

Related words

• nocciola
• nocciolo
• Latin abellana
• French aveline

Usage notes

The cultivated variety with long red nuts is the avellana pistacchina.^[12][11] GRADIT also lists avellana as the feminine of the adjectives avellano “of Avella” and “of Fonte Avellana”, the place in the province of Pesaro with a Camaldolese monastery.^[12]

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 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 90
5. ^ a b c d e 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 377
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 88
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli