caprino

Forms

caprino (feminine caprina, masculine plural caprini, feminine plural caprine)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian caprinu and, with the ⟨r⟩ moved, Old Italian crapino.^[2] Mantuan has Emilian cavrín.^[3] An old variant with a different suffix, caprigno, is recorded from about 1384 and used by Ariosto (1516).^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin caprīnus (“of a goat”), from capra (“she-goat”).^{[4][5][6][7][3]} The Latin adjective continues Proto-Italic *kaprīnos.^[1] It is formed from Latin caper + -īnus.^[8][1]

The adjective lives on in Old French chevrin, Old Occitan cabrin and Sardinian krápinu (“of a goat”).^[3][9] Several languages also made a noun of it: Aromanian căprină (“goat hair”), Spanish cabrina (“goatskin”), Portuguese cabrim and Galician cabrín.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Ristoro d'Arezzo's Composizione del mondo (1282), with the sense “of a goat”, in clothing of goatskin: vestimento di coloro caprino.^[2][10][11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the adjective described anything belonging to or like a goat, and as a noun it could mean a kid.^[2] Boccaccio, in the Corbaccio (1353), made a noun of it for the stench of goats, applied to friars: il lezzo caprino.^[11][2][10] Satyrs and the god Pan are drawn with piedi caprini, goat's feet, by Sannazaro and Leone Ebreo.^[10]

The phrase questione di lana caprina, a quarrel over nothing, comes from Horace's de lana caprina rixari, “to quarrel about goat's wool”, a wool hard to work and of little value.^[4][6] Varchi already uses disputare della lana caprina,^[7] and Galileo calls a dispute hardly weightier che quella della lana caprina.^[12]

Goat droppings used as manure were called caprino by the 19th century.^[11][13] The cheese of goat's milk is a modern sense, which the GDLI adds in its 2009 supplement.^[14][5] In zoology the word names an animal of the goat subfamily, the Caprini.^[5][15]

Timeline

• 1282 – Ristoro d'Arezzo uses caprino “of a goat”.^[2][11]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses the noun for the stench of goats.^[11]
• About 1384 – Leonardo Frescobaldi uses the variant caprigno.^[3]
• 1855 – Fanfani's dictionary records caprino for goat droppings.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a goat: latte caprino, carni caprine.^[5][16][15]
2. Like a goat's: barba caprina, a goatee;^[5][16] piede caprino, a foot shaped like a goat's hoof.^[5][16]
3. (figurative) questione di lana caprina: a pointless dispute over trifles.^[5][6][17]

Noun

1. A soft, sharp cheese of goat's milk, often in small cylinders.^[5][16][12]
2. Goat dung used as manure.^[5][6][15]
3. The smell of goats: sa di caprino.^[5][6][18]
4. (zoology) An animal of the goat subfamily; in the plural, capitalised, the subfamily Caprini of the bovid family.^[5][15]

Word family

• caprinella
• caprigno

Related words

• capra
• capro
• Latin caprīnus

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 f Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 11, 678
4. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 746
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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, 730
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 235
14. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
15. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
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. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
18. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana