Etymologically
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birra

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Pronunciation

Forms

birra f (plural birre)[1] The earliest form is Old Italian bira, in Marin Sanudo (1521), and bira is still the Venetian form.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Bier.[2][5][6][1] Nocentini names the Middle High German form, bier, and compares French bière and Romanian bere.[5] The double ⟨rr⟩ is Tuscan, as Carlo Salvioni showed in 1916, and Prati compares other foreign words that took a double ⟨rr⟩ in Italian.[2][3] The French word came from Dutch, and DEI explains the different shapes of the Italian and French borrowings by the brewing trade: German for Italy, Dutch for France.[7][8]

The feminine gender, against the neuter of German, is probably taken over from the word it replaced, cervogia, from Latin cervisia (“beer”) (compare French cervoise).[2][5][3] DEI ties the replacement to the use of hops.[7]

The origin of the German word is uncertain.[6] Nocentini, Zingarelli and Gabrielli derive it, some with a question mark, from Late Latin bibere (“to drink”), a word that would have entered Old High German through the monasteries, so that the Italian word would be a loan returning to the Romance world.[5][9][10] Körting rejected the link with the Latin verb, and Zaccaria, after Kluge, held the word to be native Germanic, perhaps related to German brauen (“to brew”).[11][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is bira in the diaries of the Venetian Marin Sanudo, in 1521, and birra in Pietro Andrea Mattioli in 1550, in the sense “a fermented drink made from malt and hops”.[2][6] Mattioli compares the drinks of the ancients with “la cervisia, over birra, che s’usa a i tempi nostri nelle parti settentrionali in tutta Alemagna, Boemia, Polonia, Fiandra, Francia” (cervisia, or beer, which is used in our time in the northern parts, all over Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Flanders, France).[8]

Semantic evolution

For a long time beer was a foreign drink in Italian texts: Chiabrera addresses someone “ebbro di birra” (drunk on beer).[8][12] A French-looking biera in Gregorio Leti (1690) did not last.[2] The trade words followed: birraio, a brewer or seller of beer, in 1797, and birreria, a beer house, in 1837;[2][5] Fanfani and Arlìa noted in 1881 that it was written on shop signs, especially in northern towns.[2][5]

In the colloquial language the word took figurative senses of speed and energy.[6][13][14] The phrase a tutta birra “at full speed” probably reshapes the French à toute bride “at full rein”, under the influence of a tutto vapore and a tutto gas;[2][9] Carlo Alberto Mastrelli thought instead of the sound of an engine, brr.[2][9] Other phrases are dare la birra a qualcuno, “to outdo someone”, especially in sport, and farci la birra, “to have no use for something”.[9][10][14] In Rome, in 1933, Che cce fo? la bbira? (what do I do with it, make beer?) was a new way of belittling a thing.[2]

Italian passed the word on to Modern Greek μπίρα (bíra), Turkish bira (through Ottoman Turkish) and Finnish birra.[1]

Timeline

  • 1521 – Marin Sanudo writes bira.[2][6]
  • 1550 – Pietro Andrea Mattioli uses birra.[2]
  • 1690 – Gregorio Leti has the Gallicism biera.[2]
  • 1797 – Birraio is recorded in D'Alberti's dictionary.[2][5]
  • 1837 – Birreria is recorded.[2]
  • 1933 – The Roman la bbira is recorded as a new colloquial phrase.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. beer, an alcoholic drink made by fermenting malt of barley or other cereals, flavoured with hops: Preferisco la birra scura a quella chiara.[6][15][13]
  2. A glass, bottle or can of beer: Ci beviamo una birra dopo il lavoro?[6][15][10]
  3. (figurative, colloquial) Speed, as in a tutta birra (at full speed).[6][14][10]
  4. (figurative, colloquial) Energy, stamina: Dopo trenta chilometri quel ciclista ha ancora birra.[6][14][10]

Word family

  • birraio
  • birreria
  • birretta
  • birrificio
  • cervogia
  • German Bier
  • French bière

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include birra alla spina (draught beer), lievito di birra (brewer's yeast), a tutta birra (at full speed), dare la birra a qualcuno (to beat someone easily) and farci la birra (to have no use for something).[6][9][15]

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 m n o p q 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 Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 147
  4. ^ a b Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 528
  8. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 245
  9. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  10. ^ a b c d e Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  14. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  15. ^ 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