cagliare

Forms

cagliare (first-person singular present càglio, first-person singular past historic cagliài, past participle cagliàto, auxiliary (intransitive) èssere or (transitive) avére)^[1] The variant quagliare keeps the /kw/ of the Latin word;^[2][3] Old Sicilian had Old Italian quaglari, with the participle quaglatu.^[2][3] Early northern forms include Bergamasque cagiar (1429) and caiare (before 1481).^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin coāgulō (“to curdle”),^[5][3][6][1] through Vulgar Latin *coāglāre and *quāglāre, with the middle vowel lost.^[1] The Latin grammarians already record a popular pronunciation of the verb in three syllables,^[7][8] and an inscription has the past form coaglāvī.^[9] The Latin verb is formed from coāgulum (“rennet”),^[3][10] which comes from cōgō.^[9] Italian coagulare and coagulo are the learned doublets of cagliare and caglio.^[5][1]

The verb survives in most of the Romance languages: French cailler, Occitan calhar, Spanish cuajar, Portuguese coalhar, Sardinian cazare and Romanian închega.^[3][1] The LEI notes that most of them keep the /kw/ of Latin, as quagliare and the Spanish and Portuguese verbs do; forms with a plain /k/, such as the Italian and French verbs and Friulian caglâ, need a base *cagulare or a later loss of the /w/, while the Romanian verb goes back to a compound *incoagulāre.^[11] Meyer-Lübke explained the /k/ of the Italian word by a crossing with gaglio, the plant bedstraw, and cited Bartoli's view that it came from French.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record of the verb in Italy is Sicilian: in Senisio's Latin glossary Declarus (1348) Old Italian quaglare translates Latin coagulo, of milk thickening when rennet is added.^[2] The form cagliare is dated before 1491 by GRADIT, with the sense “of milk, to curdle under the action of rennet”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From the curdling of milk the verb was extended early to other liquids that thicken, such as blood.^[2][13] The LEI groups the dialect forms by what curdles: milk and cheese-making, animals, plants, the human body and its feelings, and the weather; the types cagliare and quagliare are found across Italy.^[11] Tommaseo distinguishes cagliare, said properly of milk, from accagliare, rappigliarsi and aggrumare, said of eggs, sticky matter and blood.^[13]

The transitive use, “to make milk curdle”, appears in the 19th–20th century: Pascoli writes poi col presame cagliò la metà di quel candido latte (“then with rennet he curdled half of that white milk”).^[8][4] In modern Italian the variant quagliare also means “to come together, work out”, from 1906 in Verga.^[11]

Timeline

• 1348 – Sicilian quaglare glosses Latin coagulo in Senisio's Declarus.^[2]
• 1429 – Bergamasque cagiar is recorded in a glossary.^[4]
• Before 1481 – Caiare “to make milk curdle” is recorded.^[4]
• Before 1491 – GRADIT's first date for cagliare.^[6]
• About 1553 – Annibal Caro uses quagliare.^[5]
• 1663 – Oudin's dictionary records cagliare and cagliata.^[5]
• 1865 – Tommaseo–Bellini records the plant name caglio “bedstraw”.^[5]
• 1962 – Cagliatura “curdling” appears in Battaglia's dictionary.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, of milk) To curdle, thickening under the action of rennet: Lasciato al caldo, il latte cagliò in un'ora.^{[6][14][10][15]}
2. (transitive) To make milk curdle, by adding rennet: Il casaro caglia il latte appena munto.^[6][14][16]

Word family

• cagliata
• cagliatura
• accagliare
• cagliatore

Related words

• cagliato
• caglio
• coagulare
• quagliare
• coagulo
• Latin coāgulō
• French cailler

Usage notes

Cagliare takes essere when intransitive and avere when transitive.^[1][15] A separate, archaic verb cagliare meant “to lose heart, be afraid” and “to fall silent”; it was borrowed in the 16th century from Spanish callar (“to be silent”),^[6][14][1] and was used by Castiglione, Aretino, Caro and Firenzuola.^[8][17] Sicilian cagghiari “to be silent; to be humiliated” belongs with it.^[17][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 15, 178
5. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 661
8. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 15, 153
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
17. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 203