biforcare

Forms

biforcare (first-person singular present bifórco, first-person singular past historic biforcài, past participle biforcàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

DELI, Nocentini, GRADIT and Zingarelli derive it from Italian biforco, an old word for a forked stick or two-pronged tool.^[2][3][4][5] That word is from Latin bifŭrcum (“with two prongs”), formed from Latin bi- + furca (“fork”).^[2][3][6][1]

Other dictionaries take the verb from Vulgar Latin *bifurcāre, formed as a verb from the Latin adjective.^[7][8][9][1] DEI, the GDLI and Sabatini–Coletti see a learned borrowing of Medieval Latin bifurcārī, recorded in 1222, and the LEI dates that verb to about 1120.^{[10][11][12][13]} The LEI also notes that the Latin words survived in popular forms in northern and central Italy, Friulian and Romansh, while the learned forms came through medieval translations.^[13]

French bifurquer is recorded from the end of the 15th century, and Wartburg considered it a loan from Italian.^[13] Spanish bifurcar is recorded only from 1882.^[13][3] Latin furca has no certain etymology.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Leonardo da Vinci, before 1519, in the pronominal form biforcarsi: he notes that the thickness of branches hardly changes from one fork to the next.^[2][11][15] Zingarelli gives an isolated earlier date, before 1327.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The pronominal verb was long a word of anatomists and naturalists: D'Alberti called it “much used” by them in 1797.^[2][15] Vallisneri uses it of veins and of the organs of snakes, and Targioni Tozzetti of a cave that divides into two.^[11][15] A letter attributed to Dante, or its translator, has it figuratively of the power of Peter and of Caesar branching from God.^[15]

The transitive use, “to split in two”, is first recorded in 1836, when Carlo Cattaneo proposes forking a railway line near the city.^[2][11] Roads, rivers and branches are now the usual subjects of biforcarsi.^[12][9] The derivative biforcazione, also from Leonardo, gained the sense of a railway or road junction in 1925.^[2] Biforcuto, recorded about 1340, is older than the verb, and lingua biforcuta (“forked tongue”) appears in 1955 for snakes and in 1965 for a spiteful person.^[2]

Timeline

• About 1340 – Biforcuto appears in the volgarizzamento of Palladius.^[2]
• Before 1519 – Leonardo da Vinci uses biforcarsi and biforcazione.^[2]
• 1797 – D'Alberti notes the verb as a favourite term of anatomists.^[2]
• 1836 – Carlo Cattaneo uses the transitive verb of a railway line.^[2][11]
• 1925 – Biforcazione is recorded for a railway or road junction.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, rare) To fork, to split something in two like a pitchfork: Il progetto prevede di biforcare il canale a valle.^[7][5][9]
2. (transitive) To divide the end of something lengthwise into two parts.^[4]
3. (pronominal, as biforcarsi) To fork, to branch into two: Dopo il ponte il sentiero si biforca.^{[7][12][5][9]}

Word family

• biforcazione
• biforcuto
• biforcamento
• biforcatura
• biforcato

Related words

• biforcarsi
• biforco
• forca
• Latin bifurcus
• French bifurquer

Usage notes

The past participle biforcato is also an adjective, “divided in two”, and in heraldry a croce biforcata is a cross whose arms end in two points.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 62
9. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 515
11. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 5, 1526
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET