capitello

Forms

capitello m (plural capitelli)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian capetello, Old Italian capitel and Old Italian chapitello.^[2] Tommaseo also records an old feminine plural capitella.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin capitellum (“little head; capital of a column”), the diminutive of Latin capitulum, itself a diminutive of caput (“head”).^[4][5][6][7] Nocentini makes it a diminutive of the Latin word for “head” directly.^[8] DEI notes the Latin word in Varro and often from the 4th century.^[9] The LEI shows that the architectural sense lives on in Italy only as a learned word, beside Old French chapitel (about 1160), French chapiteau, Old Occitan capitel and Catalan capitell.^[7]

The inherited form survives in the north in the sense “nipple”, as Lombard cavedel.^[7][9][10] Elsewhere the same Latin word gave Old Occitan capdel (“lord”) and Spanish caudillo (“leader”), and, through a Gascon form, French cadet.^[8][10] Capo is the inherited outcome of the same Latin word.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a document from Pistoia of 1322–1326, for the top of a column.^[2] Boccaccio, about 1336, writes of windows divided by crystal columns i cui capitelli e d'oro e d'argento erano (“whose capitals were of gold and silver”).^[4][11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word also meant the highest part of something and a tribune, and capitello della poppa was the nipple, a sense LEI dates from a 13th-century translation of Petrus Hispanus.^[2][7] Old texts also used it for the flower head of a plant.^[12] In bookbinding the capitello is the band glued to the top and foot of the spine, a sense recorded before 1698 in Redi.^[4] In Tuscany it was also the handle of a saw.^[9] Modern technical senses are the collar of a chimney, the top of an alembic, and the end of some long bones.^[5][13]

In the 17th century English wrote capitel, an Italianising spelling of capital;^[14] German had Capitello in 1825.^[14]

Timeline

• 1322–1326 – A Pistoia document has capitello.^[2]
• c. 1336 – Boccaccio uses it for the capital of a column.^[4]
• Before 1698 – Redi uses it in bookbinding.^[4]
• 1825 – German Capitello is recorded.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (architecture) A capital: the top part of a column or pillar, plain or decorated, on which the architrave or arch rests: capitello ionico, capitello corinzio.^[5][13][15]
2. (bookbinding) A headband, a strip of leather or cloth fixed at the top and foot of the spine of a bound book.^[5][13][16]
3. A collar near the top of a chimney that keeps eddies from forming.^[5][13]
4. (anatomy) The end of some long bones: capitello del radio.^[5][13][6]
5. (chemistry) The top part of an alembic.^[5][13]

Related words

• capo
• capitolo
• cadetto
• Spanish caudillo
• Latin caput

References

1. ^ a b 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. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 11, 71
8. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 735
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. II, 693
12. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 230
13. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana