caglio

Forms

caglio m (plural cagli)^[1] Early forms were Old Italian caglo, Old Italian caglu and Old Italian quaglu.^[2][3] The form quaglio is old or regional.^[4][5][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *coāglum, a contracted form recorded as Late Latin quāglum, from Latin coāgulum (“curdled milk; rennet”).^[1][4][6] DELI calls the word and the verb cagliare the popular doublets of the learned coagulo and coagulare.^[3] The same word is Old French cail, Occitan calh, Catalan coall, Spanish cuajo, Portuguese coalho, Sardinian cazu and Romanian chiag.^[7][8] In the Veneto and the Ladin valleys a type remade with the prefix con- took hold, such as Venetian conago.^[9][8]

The Latin noun is formed from cōgō (“to drive together; to condense”), the contracted form of an older *coagō, with the instrument suffix -ulum, and the verb is a compound of agō (“to drive”).^[7][10][1]

The initial ⟨c⟩ instead of the ⟨qu⟩ of quaglio has been explained in several ways.^[8][11][12] Meyer-Lübke saw the influence of gaglio “bedstraw”, the plant also used to curdle milk,^[8] and DEI likewise speaks of the influence of the plant name;^[11] Devoto thought of a crossing with caseus (“cheese”).^[12]

For the plant, GRADIT, DEI and GDLI take the name as learned, from New Latin Galium, which goes back to Ancient Greek γάλιον (gálion), a plant in Dioscorides, from γάλα (gála, “milk”).^[6][11][13] Zingarelli derives it instead from the word for rennet, because the plant serves to curdle milk.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form caglo in the Mantuan writer Vivaldo Belcalzer, between 1299 and 1309, for the acid substance taken from the stomach of suckling ruminants and added to milk to make it set.^[3][2] The Sicilian Declarus of Angelo Senisio has it in 1348.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian texts already used hare's rennet as a medicine,^[2] and Redi still wrote that il caglio di lepre è molto commendato dagli autori (“hare's rennet is much praised by the authors”).^[13][15] The form caglio itself appears in Mattioli, who died in 1577, who explains that tutti gli animali che ruminano hanno il caglio (“all ruminant animals have rennet”).^[3][13]

The plant name for lady's bedstraw (Galium verum), once used in place of animal rennet in cheese-making, is recorded from before 1826, and in Tommaseo's dictionary in 1865.^[6][14][3] The modern dictionaries add the wild artichoke, also used to curdle milk, and Zingarelli gives the abomasum, the stomach from which rennet is taken.^[6][16][14]

In the dialects the word survives widely in the type quaglio, which also came to name various solid or half-liquid things.^[9]

Timeline

• 1299–1309 – Vivaldo Belcalzer writes caglo in Mantua.^[3][2]
• 1348 – The Sicilian Declarus of Angelo Senisio records the word.^[2]
• c. 1553 – Annibal Caro uses the older verb quagliare “to curdle”.^[3]
• Before 1577 – The form caglio appears in Pietro Andrea Mattioli.^[3][6]
• 1663 – Oudin's dictionary records cagliare and cagliata.^[3]
• Before 1826 – Caglio names the plant Galium verum.^[6][14]
• 1865 – Tommaseo's dictionary has the plant sense.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. rennet: the acid substance, taken from the dried abomaso of suckling calves and other ruminants, that is added to milk to curdle it for cheese; also called presame.^{[6][16][4][17]}
2. (zoology) The abomasum itself.^[14]
3. (botany) lady's bedstraw (Galium verum), a perennial plant with small yellow flowers in panicles, once used to curdle milk.^{[6][16][4][17]}
4. (botany) The wild artichoke.^[6][16][17]

Word family

• accagliare
• cagliolo

Related words

• cagliare
• quaglio
• coagulo
• coagulare
• presame
• Latin coagulum
• Spanish cuajo

Usage notes

An Italian caglio meaning a soft corn on the foot, recorded in dictionaries from Florio (1598) to Veneroni (1681), is a separate word, from Latin callum (“hardened skin”).^[18][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 15, 195
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 661
12. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 74
13. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 505
14. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ 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
17. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 9, 1466
19. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 203