badile

Forms

badile m (plural badili)^[1] Old Italian forms include baìli (plural), badi’ and bair.^[2] The dialect of Milan has Lombard baira.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *batīle, a form of Latin batillum (“shovel; firepan”) with a different suffix.^[5][6][7][8] The Latin word is a variant of classical vatillum.^[6][8]

The word reached Tuscan from the northern dialects, probably from Emilian badìl or Lombard badìl: it is not a popular Tuscan word, and Tuscan prefers pala.^[5][9] This word predominates over its synonym in almost all the northern dialects and spreads into northern Tuscany, eastern Emilia and the northern Marche.^[8] Devoto explains the /d/ as northern lenition.^[10] The same Vulgar Latin form gave Friulian badîl, Romansh badigl, Spanish badil and Portuguese badil, the last two meaning “fire shovel”.^[8][6][3] Forms with ⟨v⟩, such as Old French vadil and some in Ticino, continue a *vatīle and represent the older layer.^[8] The native Tuscan form survives in Pisan as batillo, a wooden shovel for winnowing grain; the Italian word of that form recorded in the 16th century may be a Latinism.^[4][11]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[12] The OLD derives the classical form as a diminutive from the family of Latin vannus (“winnowing fan”), while Nocentini finds no comparison for it.^[13][6] Battisti and Alessio and Devoto saw a Mediterranean base with /pat/ or /bat/ naming vessels, as in Latin patina and patella.^[4][10] In Latin the word also meant a firepan or censer, and Papias glossed it as a shovel for gathering coals.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Medieval Latin badilis appears in Friuli in 1228 and at Modena in 1238.^[5] The first Italian record is the plural baìli in the Veronese poem Babilonia of Giacomino da Verona, in the second half of the 13th century, for a shovel used for digging.^[2][8] The Tuscan form badile is first recorded about 1350 in the Italian translation of Crescenzi, where ditches are dug with spades and mattocks and the loose earth thrown out con badili ovver pale.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

In the dialects the word names many kinds of shovel and reaches as far as the spade, because the two tools overlap in use and in form.^[8] Northern Italian texts of the 14th to 16th centuries record badil at Bergamo and Trento and badili in Liguria.^[8] The modern dictionaries describe a large iron shovel with a wooden handle, used to move sand, earth and other loose material.^[14][12][15]

From 1801 or 1802 badile was also the name of an Austrian coin worth 15 soldi, struck for Trentino, Gorizia and the Littoral with the figure of a shovel on it;^[4][16] DEI dates it to 1801, the Treccani vocabulary to 1802.^[4][16] The derivatives badilata, a shovelful (before 1519, Leonardo) or a blow with a shovel (1894, Verga), and badilante, a labourer working with a shovel, are northern words.^[5]

Timeline

• 1228 – Medieval Latin badilis is recorded in Friuli.^[5]
• 1238 – Badilis is recorded at Modena.^[5]
• Second half of the 13th century – Giacomino da Verona has the plural baìli.^[2]
• 1289 – Spanish badil is first recorded.^[8][11]
• c. 1350 – Badile appears in the Italian translation of Crescenzi.^[5]
• Before 1519 – Leonardo da Vinci uses badilata “shovelful”.^[5]
• 1801 – The Austrian coin called badile is struck.^[4]
• 1882 – Badilante is recorded at Crema, in the Jacini agrarian inquiry.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large shovel with a broad iron blade and a wooden handle, used in farm work and excavation to move earth, sand and other loose material.^[7][14][16]
2. (historical) An old Austrian coin bearing the image of a shovel.^[7][16]

Word family

• badilata
• badilante
• badiletto
• badilone
• sbadilare

Related words

• pala
• batillo
• Latin batillum

Usage notes

Battisti and Alessio list two minor homographs: an old botanical name of the lesser celandine, probably from the shape of its leaves, and a dialect word for the place where the flock is milked, from Latin vadum (“ford”).^[4]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 402
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ 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. 5, 274
9. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 96
10. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 54
11. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 1, 939
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ 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
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)