briga

Forms

briga f (plural brighe)^[1] Old Italian forms include brica, brigha, brega and breiga.^[2] Old Roman had Old Italian bria, recorded before 1478.^[3]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *brīga (“strength, vigour”), a word of the Latin spoken in Gaulish territory, from Gaulish *brīga (“strength”).^[4][5] A Gaulish base meaning “strength” is supported by Old Irish bríg (“strength, value”) and Welsh bri (“dignity”).^[4][5][1] The LEI sees two Gaulish variants in the Italian material: one with a long vowel, behind the Tuscan form, which also spread to central Italy and the Veneto, and one with a short vowel, behind Old Italian brega of Liguria and north-western Italy, as in Old Occitan brega (“fray”) (1219).^[5] From the same base the masculine *brīgos gave Spanish brío and Italian brio: both started from “strength, impetus”, but the feminine took the negative sense “nuisance, quarrel” and the masculine the positive one of “liveliness”.^[4]

DELI calls the origin unclear.^[6] If the sense “difficulty, discord” is later than an original “force, vigour”, which DELI sees in two passages of Dante, the word can be joined to the Celtic one, which may itself have meant “force”.^[6] GRADIT calls it uncertain, perhaps Celtic,^[7] and the DEI gives “vigour in fighting” as the probable first sense.^[8] Zaccaria, after Storm, preferred the Gothic verb meaning “to break, to fight”, and rejected a Celtic word for “summit”;^[9] Wiktionary also allows a Germanic source, Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”).^[1]

Medieval Latin briga is recorded in 1279 and brigator (“quarrel-picker”) at Bologna in 1299.^[8] French brigue (1314) was borrowed from Italian,^[8][4][10] and Galician briga, Portuguese briga, Serbo-Croatian briga and Slovene briga were borrowed too.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, of the last quarter of the 12th century.^[2] Uguccione da Lodi uses it at the beginning of the 13th century.^[3] The earliest senses are “quarrel, discord”, also “war, battle” and “brawl”, and “toil, trouble, worry”.^[2] Brunetto Latini, who died before 1294, has both “nuisance, difficult problem” and “dispute, quarrel”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In early use the word could mean the effort and toil of working: Brunetto Latini says that before Adam's fall the earth bore fruit sanza nulla semente / o briga d'om vivente (“without any seed or the toil of a living man”).^[11] Dante calls the storm of the second circle of Hell la detta briga, the wind that carries the souls,^[12][2] and uses civil briga for a civil war.^[13] The phrase cercar briga “to look for a quarrel” has a Medieval Latin model in Salimbene (1281–1288), vadunt querendo brigam.^[6] Old Italian a gran briga meant “barely”, as in Iacopone.^[13]

The senses of fighting are now literary or obsolete, and briga is above all a nuisance or a troublesome task.^[7][14] From the verb brigare came brigata (13th century) and brigante (before 1342), first a man who keeps company, later a member of a band of outlaws, and brigantino (1380), a ship of the company or escort.^[4] French brigue passed from “quarrel” (1314) to “manoeuvre to beat a rival” (1477–1483).^[10]

Timeline

• 1175–1200 – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur is the first record.^[2]
• Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi uses briga.^[3]
• 1279 – Medieval Latin briga is recorded.^[8]
• 1281–1288 – Salimbene writes vadunt querendo brigam.^[6]
• 1290 – Briga appears in the Medieval Latin of Venice.^[6]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it for “nuisance” and “quarrel”.^[6]
• 1299 – Brigator “quarrel-picker” is recorded at Bologna.^[8]
• 1314 – French brigue is first recorded.^[8][10]
• Before 1342 – The derivative brigante appears.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A nuisance or bother; a troublesome task or problem: Non voglio altre brighe.^[7][14][15]
2. darsi or prendersi la briga di: to take the trouble to do something: Non si è presa la briga di rispondere.^[7][16][13]
3. A tangled, difficult situation.^[7][14]
4. A quarrel, dispute; in attaccare briga and cercar briga, to pick a quarrel.^{[7][14][15][16]}
5. (literary) intrigue, scheming.^[7][14][16]
6. (literary, obsolete) A fight, battle or war.^{[7][14][15][13]}

Word family

• brigare
• disbrigare
• sbrigare
• brigante
• brigantaggio
• brigantino
• brigata
• brigatista
• brighella
• disbrigo
• imbrigare
• sbrigativo
• brigoso

Related words

• brigadiere
• brio
• French brigue

Usage notes

The place name Briga, borne by several Alpine communes, has a separate source: a Celtic word for a high, fortified place.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 7
4. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 7, 422
6. ^ a b c d e f g 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 h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 599
9. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
10. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 374
12. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b c d e f 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 c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana