borra

Forms

borra f (plural borre)^[1] The old spelling bora is also found.^[2] Northern forms are Ligurian bura and Piedmontese bura.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin burra (“coarse hairy cloth”), recorded in the Anthologia Latina.^[4][5][6][3] Together with Latin reburrus (“shaggy-haired”), it points to a Vulgar Latin burra (“mass of hair, raw wool”) of the spoken language.^[3] Ausonius uses the plural burrae for trifles.^[7][3]

The origin of the Latin word is unclear.^[5][8] It is often taken as the feminine of Latin burrus (“red”), from a phrase meaning “reddish wool”.^[5][4][1] DEI finds that this fits the sense badly and prefers an Etruscan word matching Ancient Greek βύρσα (býrsa, “hide”), with ⟨rs⟩ assimilated to ⟨rr⟩.^[9]

The same word is French bourre (Old French borre from about 1178), Occitan borra, Catalan borra, Spanish borra, Portuguese borra and Sardinian burra.^[3][5][10] The word bure (“coarse woollen cloth”) in French is related too.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Sienese statutes of 1298, for the waste left from spinning wool.^[2][8] Medieval Latin documents had the word earlier, at Bologna in 1288 and in the Levant in 1307.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian borra was spinning waste and the stuffing made from it, and also a cheap cloth, used for example as a pall.^[2] Cecco Angiolieri already uses the verb borrare “to stuff with borra” before 1313.^[4] The Note al Malmantile explain it as a kind of wool chopped with a knife and used to stuff pack-saddles.^[11]

The figurative sense, worthless filler, appears in Guicciardini before 1540: “è impossibile che chi dice o scrive molte cose non vi metta di molta borra” (anyone who says or writes many things cannot help putting in a lot of padding).^[4][8] Annibal Caro uses it for padding in a letter.^[12] In 1853 D'Ayala records the wad in a hunting cartridge that separates the shot from the powder, and the Maltese grammar of 1721 already lists the military orders mettere la burra and battere la burra.^[4] Derivatives include abborracciare “to botch” (15th century), whose sense is to fill with odds and ends, and borraccina “moss” (18th century).^[5]

Timeline

• 1288 – Medieval Latin borra is recorded at Bologna.^[4]
• 1298 – Borra appears in the Sienese statutes.^[2]
• Before 1313 – Cecco Angiolieri uses borrare.^[4]
• 15th century – Abborracciare is recorded.^[5]
• Before 1540 – Guicciardini uses borra for empty words.^[4]
• 1721 – Burra “wad” appears in military orders in a Maltese grammar.^[4]
• 1853 – D'Ayala records the cartridge wad.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (textiles) Waste wool or silk, clippings, or a mixture of animal hair and horsehair, used for stuffing and cheap felt.^[6][13][8]
2. The floss that holds the silkworm's cocoon to the twigs, discarded in spinning.^[13][14][8]
3. The soft underfur of some furred or woolly animals.^[6][13][15]
4. The wad in a shotgun cartridge that separates the powder from the shot.^[6][13][8]
5. (zoology) The pellet coughed up by birds of prey.^[6][13][8]
6. (figurative) Worthless stuff, rubbish, and especially empty words used as filler: Il suo saggio è quasi tutto borra.^[6][13][14]

Word family

• borrare
• abborracciare
• abborrare
• borraccina
• borraccio
• borraggio
• borratura
• imborrare

Related words

• buratto
• burla
• French bourre
• Latin burra

Usage notes

Battere la borra meant to shiver with cold, with chattering teeth.^[16][11] GDLI and DEI list it under a separate borra, from Late Latin borras “north wind” or a Tuscan adaptation of bora, while the Note al Malmantile compare the chattering to the beating of borra.^[11][9] GRADIT and Devoto–Oli also have a northern regional borra (from 1829): a piece of firewood, a log about a metre long.^[6][13] GRADIT calls its origin uncertain, while Devoto–Oli derives it from a probably pre-Latin borra “round body”.^[6][13][10]

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 8, 213
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 568
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ 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, 317
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 164