busto

Forms

busto m (plural busti)^[1] Older forms are Old Italian bustu and vusto.^[2] An old plural le bustora is recorded in 1238.^[3]

Etymology

According to DELI, GRADIT, Zingarelli, Treccani and Wiktionary, it is inherited from Latin bustum (“place where the dead were burned; tomb”).^{[3][4][5][6][1]} On this view the meaning moved from “tomb” to “sculpted image of the dead placed on the tomb” and then to “trunk of the body”.^[3][4][1] Meyer-Lübke and Körting held the same view, Körting after d'Ovidio,^[7][8] though Meyer-Lübke admitted that if “tree stump” was the first sense, the source was still to be found.^[7] The Latin word arose by a wrong division of ambūrō (“to burn around”), from amb- and ūrō (“to burn”), read as ⟨am-būrō⟩ with the participle ⟨ambustus⟩; the same division gave combūrō.^[9][10][1]

Hubschmid (1970), followed by the LEI and Nocentini, separates it from the Latin word for a tomb and derives it from a homophonous Vulgar Latin *būstum, from Gaulish *bustis (“stem, trunk”), the counterpart of Latin fustis (“stick”), an idea first put forward by Kuryłowicz.^[3][11][12] Nocentini points out that the link “commemorative statue” between “tomb” and “bust” does not exist in Latin and appears only later in Italian.^[11] The LEI adds that the sense “trunk” survives in Romanian buștean (“log”) (1483) and Romansh büst (“stem”), and that the sense “trunk of the body” is already in Old Occitan bustz about 1180, as the trunk of a tree became the trunk of the body in Latin truncus.^[12] It keeps the Latin word only for learned uses (“tomb” in Boccaccio, “corpse” in Ariosto) and for place names such as Busto Arsizio.^[13]

The same word is Spanish busto and Portuguese busto, while French buste was borrowed from Italian.^[11][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the plural bustora in the Ricordi of Matasala di Spinello (1238), where the word names a woman's garment.^[3][4][15] The sense “trunk of the human body” is first in the Lombard Istoria of Pseudo-Uguccione (first half of the 13th century)^[2] and in Dante, who sees in Inferno 28 un busto sanza capo andar sì come / andavan gli altri (“a trunk without a head walking as the others walked”).^[3][16]

Semantic evolution

The garment sense is older than the Italian texts: Medieval Latin has busto at Verona in 1139 and bustum at Genoa in 1157.^[12] The Datini inventories have inbusti in 1398, and busto for a stiffened bodice is recorded in 1585.^[3] The sense “sculpture of the head and chest without arms” appears about 1635, in an English text by R. Lassels;^[3][17] English had busto in this sense from 1662 before taking bust from French, and German took Büste in 1717.^[17] French buste is recorded in the art sense from 1546.^[17]

Fifteenth-century and dialect texts also use busto for the trunk of a tree.^[12] Ariosto used it for a corpse in 1532.^[13] Tommaseo records the saying non star bene due capi a un busto (“two heads do not suit one body”), said of two people ruling with equal authority.^[18] The diminutive bustino (1618) came to mean a stiffened bodice in 1720, bustaia, a woman who makes or sells corsets, is recorded in 1879, and busto ortopedico in 1941.^[3]

Timeline

• 1139 – Medieval Latin busto names a garment at Verona.^[12]
• 1238 – The plural bustora appears in the Ricordi of Matasala di Spinello.^[3][4]
• First half of the 13th century – Pseudo-Uguccione uses busto for the trunk of the body.^[2]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses busto for the trunk of the body.^[3][17]
• 1398 – Inbusti are listed in the Datini inventories.^[3]
• 1532 – Ariosto uses busto for a corpse.^[13]
• 1585 – Busto names a bodice or corset.^[3]
• 1618 – The diminutive bustino is recorded.^[3]
• About 1635 – The sense “sculptured bust” appears in an English text by R. Lassels.^[3][17]
• 1662 – English busto is recorded in the art sense.^[17]
• 1717 – German Büste is recorded.^[17]
• 1941 – Busto ortopedico enters the Academy dictionary.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The torso: the upper part of the human body between the neck and the waist: piegò il busto in avanti per allacciarsi le scarpe.^{[4][19][5][1]}
2. (sculpture) A bust: a sculpture of a human figure from the head to the chest, without arms.^[4][20][21]
3. A dressmaker's dummy that reproduces only the trunk.^[4]
4. A corset: a close-fitting women's undergarment, often with stays, that shapes the waist, hips and bust.^[4][20][5]
5. (medicine) busto ortopedico: an orthopaedic brace for the spine.^[4][5][20]
6. The bodice of a woman's dress; the embroidered laced bodice of some regional costumes.^[4][5][6]
7. pollo a busto: a chicken sold without head, feet and entrails, ready for cooking.^[5][20]
8. (archaic) A tomb; a corpse.^{[4][5][21][1]}

Word family

• mezzobusto
• bustino
• bustaia
• imbusto

Related words

• fusto
• combusto
• Latin bustum
• French buste

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 n o p 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 g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ 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, 350
13. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 8, 363
14. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 196
15. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 643
16. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 465
17. ^ a b c d e f g Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
18. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
19. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
20. ^ 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
21. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana