cacio

Forms

cacio m (plural caci)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian cascio, caso, caxo and casciu.^[2][3] Cascio was used by writers until the 16th century.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cāseus (“cheese”).^[6][7][8][1]

The Latin word lives on in Spanish queso, Portuguese queijo, Sardinian casu and Romanian caș, and in Dalmatian kis.^[7][9][3] In France and Catalonia it was replaced by Medieval Latin formaticum, whence formaggio.^[3] Early on it was borrowed into Germanic and Celtic: Old High German chāsi, German Käse, Old English cēse, English cheese and Old Irish cáise.^[7][9]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[6][10] It has often been traced to Proto-Indo-European *kwath₂- (“to boil, ferment”) and compared with the Slavic words for “leaven” and “sour milk”, but a /w/ should not have disappeared in Latin, and de Vaan finds no proposal free of weak assumptions.^[7][10][1] A loan from a neighbouring Italic language such as Sabine has also been suggested.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Venetian form caso in a document of the third quarter of the 12th century, the Ricordacione Cornaro.^[2][3] In Tuscany cascio is in the Pisan account books of 1299 and cacio in Domenico Cavalca, before 1342; the sense throughout is “cheese”.^[6][8]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian had many phrases with the word: cacio parmigiano, cacio di marzo, bestia da cacio for a sheep or goat kept for cheese, and sayings such as mangiare cacio e pane “to live frugally” and mettere le zanne nel cacio “to act greedily”.^[2] Boccaccio has come il pane e 'l cacio in the Decameron.^[11][12]

The word belongs to Tuscany and central and southern Italy, while the north uses formaggio.^[6] Treccani notes that it is popular in Tuscany and Umbria and sounds literary in the north.^[13] In the 19th century Tommaseo distinguished cacio as the general word from formaggio, the cheese as shaped in its mould.^[12]

Derivatives include caciola (14th century), caciotta (1846) and caciocavallo, a southern hard cheese that reached the written language in the 14th century; why it is named after a horse is unclear, and one explanation is that the cheeses are hung in pairs astride a pole.^[6][7]

Timeline

• 1150–1175 – Venetian caso is recorded in the Ricordacione Cornaro.^[2][3]
• 1299 – Pisan cascio is recorded in account books.^[6][8]
• 1311 – Caciocavallo is recorded at Naples in the Angevin registers.^[6]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses cacio.^[6]
• 1846 – Caciotta is recorded.^[6][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Tuscan) cheese: un pezzo di cacio pecorino.^[8][5][13]
2. A whole cheese, one round of it.^[8][14][13]

Word family

• caciocavallo
• caciola
• caciotta
• caciaia
• caciaio
• caciaiolo
• incaciare

Related words

• formaggio
• caseario
• casaro
• Latin cāseus
• Spanish queso

Usage notes

Common idioms are come il cacio sui maccheroni “just at the right moment”, essere pane e cacio “to be close friends” and alto quanto un soldo di cacio “knee-high”, said of a small child or a short person.^[8][5][13] Tommaseo already records the last as said to a child who talks above his age.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 12, 1041
4. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
5. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier