Etymologically
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bosco

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈbɔs.ko/[1]
  • Regional: /ˈbos.ko/[1]

Forms

bosco m (plural boschi)[1] There was an old plural Old Italian boscora beside boschi.[2][3][4] Old forms include Old Italian boscho, Old Italian busco and Old Italian vosco.[2]

Etymology

It is a Germanic word, from a West Germanic Proto-Germanic *bosk or *busk (“wood, thicket”), the word of German Busch and English bush.[5][6][7] The two forms are reconstructed because the dialects show outcomes with open and with closed /o/ or with /u/.[5][6] Nocentini and DELI take the Italian word from Lombardic, the French and Occitan words from Frankish;[5][6][8] DELI allows a Celtic influence as well, and the LEI heads its article with a Gothic *busk.[5][6][8] Meyer-Lübke instead derived the Italian word from Old Occitan bosc, from Frankish *busk, and Wiktionary from Medieval Latin boscus, of the same Frankish origin, from Proto-Germanic *buskaz.[9][1] Medieval Latin has buscus at Padua in 1145.[6][10]

The same word is French bois, Old Occitan bosc, Catalan bosc and Friulian bòsc; Spanish bosque and Portuguese bosque are probably loans from Catalan or Gallo-Romance.[8][5] The LEI considers the Germanic origin settled; earlier proposals derived the word from Ancient Greek βόσκω (bóskō, “to graze”), from Latin buxus (“box tree”) or from Celtic.[8][4] Zaccaria already rejected the box tree, since box does not form wide woods and the outcomes of its Latin name never keep the /k/.[11] In Italy the word gradually replaced the Latinism selva.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the Breve di Montieri of 1219, with the sense “a stretch of land covered with trees and wild shrubs”, and also the trees themselves.[6][7] The TLIO's first record is a little earlier, in Uguccione da Lodi, a Cremonese poet of the early 13th century.[2] At the start of the 13th canto of the Inferno Dante and Virgil enter un bosco / che da nessun sentiero era segnato, “a wood that no path marked”.[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used bosco for a tangle of wild vegetation, a grove sacred to a god, a heap of branches used for building or filling, and figuratively a wild place.[2] The figurative sense “a mass of things crowded together” is recorded in Tasso (1581), and the bundles of twigs on which silkworms spin their cocoons in 1625.[6] In poetry the word could also mean firewood or timber.[12][13]

Tuscan proverbs recorded by Tommaseo include è meglio esser uccel di bosco che uccel di gabbia, “better a bird of the woods than a bird in a cage”.[4] From the noun came boscaglia (Medieval Latin buscalea at Bobbio in 977), boschereccio, boscoso, boscaiolo and imboscare.[6]

Timeline

  • 977 – Medieval Latin buscalea is recorded at Bobbio.[6]
  • 1145 – Medieval Latin buscus is recorded at Padua.[6][10]
  • Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi uses bosco.[2]
  • 1219 – The Breve di Montieri records bosco.[6][7]
  • c. 1319 – Dante enters the wood of the suicides in Inferno 13.[3]
  • Before 1363 – Matteo Villani uses boscaglia.[6]
  • 1581 – Tasso uses bosco for a mass of things crowded together.[6]
  • 1625 – The sense “twigs for silkworms” is recorded.[6]
  • 1935 – Sottobosco is recorded.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. wood, woodland: land covered with trees, usually tall, with shrubs and other wild plants; the trees themselves: un bosco di castagni.[7][14][15]
  2. (figurative) A thick tangle of things: un bosco di antenne sui tetti.[7][14][12]
  3. (silkworm farming) The bundles of twigs on which silkworms spin their cocoons.[7][14][16]
  4. (poetic, archaic) Firewood, timber.[7][15][12]

Word family

  • boscaglia
  • boscaiolo
  • boschereccio
  • boschivo
  • boscosità
  • boscoso
  • diboscare
  • disboscare
  • imboscare
  • imboscata
  • imboscato
  • rimboscare
  • imboschire
  • sottobosco
  • boschetto
  • rimboschimento

Usage notes

Idioms include uccel di bosco, someone who cannot be found, especially by the police, and portare legna al bosco, to do something useless.[12][16][13] Frutti di bosco are wild berries such as blueberries and raspberries.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  3. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  4. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  5. ^ a b c d e f 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 k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  7. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ a b c d e Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 1553
  9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
  11. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
  12. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  13. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  14. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  16. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana