canova

Forms

canova f (plural canove)^[1] The northern and Venetian form is caneva.^[2][3][1] Old Italian texts also have canava, Old Italian cannava and Old Italian canneva.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin canaba, a Late Latin word for a tent or hut; in the plural it named the villages of huts that grew up beside Roman military camps, with stores of provisions and shops for wine and bread.^[5][6][7] The Latin word is late and rare, and seems to belong to the language of the army.^[8][9] In Medieval Latin it is recorded at Nonantola in 826 and at Venice in 1085.^[5]

The LEI finds the word only in Italo-Romance, in Old Friulian caniva and in an Old Engadine word for “credit”.^[8] Dialect forms include Sicilian cànnava, Lombard and Venetian càneva, and Logudorese kanáva, with the stress moved.^[5][8][10] A form with the consonants swapped, ⟨cávana⟩, runs from Ticino to Friuli.^[8]

The origin of canaba is uncertain.^[11][12] Nocentini derives it from Ancient Greek κάναβος (kánabos), a wooden framework used by sculptors, which would have come to mean any light building.^[9][6] DEI points out that the gender and sense of the Greek word do not fit, and notes that words in -aba and -apa are common among the pre-Latin relics of the Mediterranean.^[5] Wiktionary mentions a possible Semitic source, comparing an Aramaic word for a shop, and adds that Arabic حانوت (ḥānūt) may have reinforced the Italian word.^[1] Nocentini traces capanna to the same Latin word.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Contemplazione della morte, a Cremonese text of 1265 in a Sienese copy.^[4] In Old Italian the word meant a shop selling foodstuffs, a pantry or cellar, a store for grain or salt, and, in law, the magistracy in charge of a city's food supply.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Giovanni Villani writes of bread sold every morning “in three or four canove” in famine-time Florence, and Machiavelli of the public canove in which German cities kept a year's food, drink and fuel.^[7] In Tuscany the word long meant the store of grain for supplying the city and the army, and in Venice the salt warehouse.^[2][6]

The sense “cellar, pantry” lasted in the dialects, and figurative uses appear in the Crusca's own writers, who called the academy's stock of words its canova.^[7] Today the word is regional, for a shop that sells wine by the glass or flask and often other food as well;^[11][6][7] D'Annunzio and Tozzi use it for such wine shops.^[11][6][7]

Timeline

• 805 – Medieval Latin canavarius “cellarer” is recorded at Bergamo.^[13]
• 826 – Medieval Latin canova is recorded at Nonantola.^[5]
• 907 – Old Parmesan càneva is recorded.^[5]
• 1265 – First Italian record, in the Contemplazione della morte.^[4]
• 1309–1310 – Sienese canava appears in the city statute.^[8]
• 1323 – Venetian canipa is recorded.^[13]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses Pisan cànova.^[8]
• Before 1348 – GRADIT's date for the word in the standard language.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional) A shop selling wine by retail, often with bread, oil and other groceries.^{[11][2][14][6]}
2. (historical) A storehouse for grain or provisions supplying a city or an army; in Venice, the salt store.^[11][2][6]
3. (archaic) A cellar or pantry.^[15][4]

Word family

• canovaio
• canoviere

Related words

• capanna
• Latin canaba

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
5. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 725
6. ^ a b c d e f g Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 648
8. ^ a b c d e f Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 10, 533
9. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
12. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 224
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli