botte

Forms

botte f (plural botti, diminutive botticèlla or (archaic) botticèllo m or botticìna or (less common) botticìno m)^[1] Early forms include Old Italian bote, Old Italian bocte, Old Italian bota and southern Old Italian votte.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin buttis (“small vessel; cask”), recorded in a Ravenna papyrus of 564 together with the diminutive butticella.^[3][4][5] Nocentini derives it from Ancient Greek βούττη (boúttē), a late variant of βοῦτις (boûtis), which is recorded from the 1st century BC for a vessel shaped like a truncated cone.^[6][3][5] DELI notes that the Greek word looks like a loan itself, and GRADIT calls the origin uncertain.^[3][4]

Nocentini compares Ancient Greek πυτίνη (putínē, “flask”), which with the Greek and Latin words points to a loan from an unidentified source.^[6] The Germanic family of German Bütte (“tub”), already Old High German butin, is in his view an early southern loan from the same Greek word.^[6] The LEI and Wiktionary connect the Latin word with a root meaning “to swell”, Proto-Indo-European *bʰeHw- (“to swell, puff”), and the LEI compares Welsh both (“round vessel”).^[5][1]

The same word is Old French bout, Occitan bot, Catalan bota, Spanish bota and Portuguese bota “wineskin”, and Romanian bute (“large barrel”).^[6][7] The Romanian word and Albanian bute show that the Latin form is older than its first record in the 6th century.^[5] The short /u/ gave the closed /o/ of Italian.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Medieval Latin documents have buttes at Lucca in 768, botte in Campania in 845 and bota in Liguria in 1156.^[3] The first Italian record is a Savona document of 1178–1182, and the Florentine inventory of Orlando's goods has botte in 1221; the sense is “barrel”, a large bulging container of wooden staves held by hoops.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old Italian the word also meant the quantity of wine or other liquid a barrel holds, and any container, also figuratively.^[2] The Novellino tells of a merchant who carried wine overseas in botti a due pàlcora, with wine above and below and water in the middle.^[8] From the 15th century it was also a unit for a ship's tonnage,^[9] and the volta a botte, the semicircular barrel vault, is recorded before 1537 in Vannoccio Biringuccio.^[3]

DELI regards essere in una botte di ferro, “to be perfectly safe”, as an expression of the north-eastern dialects.^[3] Later senses include a very fat person, a barrel-shaped hide for marsh hunting, and, at sea, a kind of top on the foremast.^[4][10] French took botte as a measure in the 15th century, from Italian or Old Occitan.^[11]

Timeline

• 564 – Late Latin buttis appears in a Ravenna papyrus.^[3][5]
• 768 – Medieval Latin buttes is recorded at Lucca.^[3]
• 845 – Botte appears in a Campanian text.^[3]
• 1156 – Bota is recorded in Liguria.^[3]
• 1178–1182 – A Savona document gives the first Italian record.^[2]
• 1221 – Botte appears in the inventory of Orlando's goods.^[3]
• 1238 – The old form bote is recorded.^[4]
• 1449 – Simoneta uses botte as a unit of ship tonnage.^[9]
• 15th century – French borrows botte as a measure.^[11]
• Before 1537 – Vannoccio Biringuccio uses volta a botte.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A barrel, cask: a large bulging container of wooden staves held by metal hoops and closed by two round ends, for wine and other liquids: Hanno messo il vino nuovo nella botte grande.^[4][12][13]
2. The quantity a barrel holds; by extension, a great amount of liquid.^[4][10]
3. (figurative, humorous) A very fat person.^[4][10]
4. (hunting) A barrel-shaped hide in a marsh, in which the hunter waits.^[4][14][13]
5. (nautical) A kind of top on the foremast; on some schooners, a square sail on the foremast.^[4][10]
6. (historical) An old unit of liquid measure, different from region to region; also a unit of ship tonnage equal to one ton.^[4][14][15]

Word family

• bottaio
• bottame
• botticella
• bottaccio
• imbottare
• imbottatore
• imbottatura
• imbotte
• botticello
• botticino
• cerchiobottismo
• cerchiobottista

Related words

• bottiglia
• Latin buttis
• German Bütte

Usage notes

Set phrases include volta a botte (a barrel vault), essere in una botte di ferro (to be perfectly safe), dare un colpo al cerchio e uno alla botte (to keep both sides happy) and the proverb volere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca (to want two incompatible things).^[4][14][10]

In Rome botte and botticella were the horse-drawn public cab; the GDLI and DEI treat this as a separate word of Roman dialect, perhaps from French boîte (“box”), which reached the literary language with D'Annunzio.^[16][17] Botte is also the plural of botta “blow”.^[18]

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 f g h i j k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 8, 401
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 329
9. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 167
10. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
11. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2
17. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 576
18. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org