busecchia

Forms

busecchia f (plural busecchie)^[1] A masculine busecchio was also used.^[2][3][1] In Milanese the word is Lombard büseca, and the Milanese poet Bonvesin da la Riva already has the plural Old Italian buseche “guts”.^[4][5]

Etymology

The origin is disputed.^[1][6] Nocentini takes it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *vesīcula, a diminutive of vēsīca (“bladder”), whence vescica.^[4][7] In his account the initial ⟨v⟩ became ⟨b⟩ and the vowel before the stress became ⟨u⟩ next to the labial consonant, as in the Arezzo form busìca and Sardinian buscicca.^[4] The expected form in ⟨-icchia⟩ then took the ending ⟨-ecchia⟩, commoner in Tuscan.^[4] Prati had already compared the Arezzo word and Lombard büseca (“gut, tripe”), while calling the origin unclear.^[5][4] Wiktionary also connects it with vēsīcula.^[1]

Others link it to buzzo (“belly, paunch”): GRADIT calls it probably connected with that word, and the GDLI derives the Tuscan word from the Milanese word, citing Medieval Latin buzecha (“tripe”) (1386, Mirandola) and buzacca (1288, Cividale), from the same root as the word for belly.^[6][8] Zingarelli and Gabrielli treat it as a variant of busecca.^[9][10] Devoto derived the Lombard word from a northern word for “paunch” with a slightly pejorative suffix, later fitted in Tuscan to the series of orecchia and petecchia.^[11] Pellegrini proposed a colloquial Arabic phrase meaning “paunch”, literally “father of the waterskin”, which Sabatini–Coletti mentions as a possibility.^[4][12] Nocentini considers it unnecessary given the Italo-Romance forms.^[12][4] Treccani leaves the origin open.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Milanese plural buseche in Bonvesin da la Riva (13th century), with the sense “intestines of an animal or a person, entrails”.^[13] In Tuscan the word appears in Boccaccio's Decameron (1348–1353), where the people of the Abruzzi are said to dress pigs in “their own busecchie”, that is, to stuff sausages in the pigs' own guts.^[6][8][2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the word for the sausage itself, meat stuffed in an animal's gut.^[13] Franco Sacchetti has the masculine busecchio in a story of a pan sent to the baker's oven with a busecchio in it.^[2][8] The Tuscan translation of Mesue uses busecchie for the human intestines.^[2] Prati records it for tripe (Oudin) and, in old Florentine, for a purse for money.^[5]

In modern Italian it is a regional Tuscan word for an animal's gut used as a casing for sausages, and in the plural for the intestines or tripe.^[6][7][9][3]

Timeline

• 13th century – Bonvesin da la Riva uses Milanese buseche “guts”.^[13][4]
• 1288 – Medieval Latin buzacca is recorded at Cividale.^[8]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses busecchie in the Decameron.^[6][8]
• 1386 – Medieval Latin buzecha “tripe” is recorded at Mirandola.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Tuscany) An animal's gut, especially a pig's, used as a casing for sausages.^[6][7][9][3]
2. (Tuscany, in the plural) Intestines, guts; tripe.^{[7][12][9][3]}

Word family

• imbusecchiare

Related words

• busecca
• buzzo
• vescica

Usage notes

The s is voiced: /buˈzek.kja/.^[1][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 195
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d e f Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
9. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it