boaro

Forms

boaro m (plural boari, feminine boara)^[1] Old Paduan has boar and Old Sicilian buaru.^[2][3] The usual standard form is bovaro.^[4][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *bo(v)ārus, from Late Latin boārius, glossed as “herdsman of oxen”.^[2][7][1] This was the classical adjective Latin bovārius “of cattle”, used as a noun for a person; it is formed from bōs (“ox”) with the suffix -ārius.^[2][1] Aebischer showed that this suffix was already reduced to -ārus in Latin; this form survives in the east of the Romania, as in Romanian boar, Friulian bovâr and Italian, while the west has the full suffix, as in French bouvier, Catalan bover, Spanish boyero and Portuguese boieiro.^[2][8] Devoto sees in the ending the central and southern treatment of the Latin suffix.^[9]

Wiktionary notes that it can also be analysed as bove plus -aro, and that it is a doublet of the learned boario.^[1] The Latin word for “ox” is irregular: its initial /b/ cannot come regularly from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws (“cow”), and the word is generally taken as a loan from a Sabellic language.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Medieval Latin documents have boarius at Bassano in 1259 and bovarius at Fabriano in 1294.^[7] In the vernacular the form boar appears in the rhymes of the Paduan poet Francesco di Vannozzo, before about 1389, with the sense “keeper of oxen”.^[2] The standard form boaro is first recorded in Florio's dictionary of 1598.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

Prati notes that boaro was not a Florentine word, but Paduan, unlike Old Florentine boattiere, a dealer in oxen.^[11] In Emilia and Romagna the boaro was a farm worker bound by the contract called boaria, and Panzini describes farms there run by a boaro instead of tenant farmers.^[12] D'Annunzio and Govoni use the word in verse.^[12]

The bird that follows the oxen in the fields, the yellow wagtail, was named boarina or bovarina after the herdsman.^[11][8] In the north the stella boara, the herdsman's star, is the planet Venus, the morning star.^[12][8] Treccani also gives it the figurative, scornful sense of a rough, uncouth man.^[13]

Timeline

• 1259 – Medieval Latin boarius is recorded at Bassano.^[7]
• 1294 – Bovarius is recorded at Fabriano.^[7]
• Before about 1389 – Francesco di Vannozzo writes Paduan boar.^[2]
• 1463 – Old Vicentine boaro appears in a statute of the Battuti.^[2]
• 1598 – Florio records boaro.^[7][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cowherd, a farm worker who looks after the working oxen and drives them; a bifolco.^{[13][14][12][1]}
2. (regional, Emilia and Romagna) A farm worker under the boaria contract.^[12]
3. (figurative, derogatory) A rough, uncouth man.^[13][6]

Word family

• boaria
• boarina

Related words

• bovaro
• bove
• bue
• boario
• Latin bovarius

Usage notes

GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and Zingarelli treat boaro as a variant of bovaro, whose senses it shares, except the dog breeds called bovaro.^[4][5][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 6, 1610
3. ^ Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 154
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)