capro

Forms

capro m (plural capri)^[1] Old forms also include Old Italian caprio and Old Italian crapio.^[2] Southern dialects have the form with the r moved, Sicilian crapu.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin caper (“he-goat”).^[4][5][6][7] Nocentini and Zingarelli call it a learned borrowing, and DEI a probably learned word, since the popular words for the animal in Italy are caprone and becco.^[4][6][8] Wiktionary instead counts it as inherited, and the LEI lists old and dialect forms such as Sicilian crapu that continue the Latin word directly.^[1][3] In Sardinia the word survives as Old Sardinian capros and modern crabu.^[3][8] The old Spanish form was Old Spanish cabro.^[3][8]

The Latin word comes from Proto-Italic *kapros, like Umbrian kaprum.^[9][1] Its cognates are Ancient Greek κάπρος (kápros, “wild boar”), Old Irish caera (“sheep”) and Old Norse hafr (“he-goat”).^[9][4][1] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *kápros (“buck, he-goat”), but de Vaan doubts it: no single PIE word for the goat can be set up, and the word may be a loan, being suspiciously close to Celtic words such as Old Irish gabor (“goat”).^[9][1] According to Varro the Latin word first meant a castrated he-goat, as against Latin hircus.^[8] Nocentini links that sense to a root meaning “cut”, found also in Latin cāpō (“capon”).^[8][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Neapolitan Regimen Sanitatis of the 13th century.^[2] In Tuscan texts of 1325 and in Boccaccio's Caccia di Diana (about 1334) the word names the wild goat or the roe deer.^[3] DELI dates the sense “male of the goat” to Leon Battista Alberti, 1437–38.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian capro meant the male goat, a wild goat and the roe deer, and in a Florentine translation of Ovid it was used figuratively for a cuckold.^[2][3] The roe deer sense lasted in poetry until Monti in 1825.^[3] Tasso writes of i capri snelli e i cervi, “the nimble roe deer and the stags”.^[3][5][11] In the 16th century the word also named the constellation and zodiac sign of Capricorn.^[8][12]

The phrase capro espiatorio (also capro emissario) goes back to Jerome, whose Latin Bible rendered a Hebrew word with caper emissarius.^[8][13] It recalls the Jewish rite of the Day of Atonement, in which the high priest laid the people's sins on a goat and sent it away into the desert.^[11][7] Figuratively it is the person who is made to bear the blame for others.^[11][6]

Timeline

• 13th century – The Neapolitan Regimen Sanitatis has the first record.^[2]
• 1325 – Capro is recorded in Tuscan.^[3]
• About 1334 – Boccaccio uses it for the wild goat or roe deer.^[3]
• 1437–1438 – Leon Battista Alberti uses it for the male goat.^[10]
• 1830 – Capro is recorded as the name of a fish genus.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The male of the domestic goat; a billy goat (also becco, caprone).^[5][7][14]
2. (figurative) capro espiatorio: a scapegoat, someone blamed for what others did: in ufficio facevano sempre di lui il capro espiatorio.^[7][6][15]
3. (poetic, archaic) A roe deer.^[5][16]
4. (literary) The sign of Capricorn.^[16][12]

Word family

• caprone
• capretto
• caproncino

Related words

• capra
• capriolo
• becco
• Latin caper

Usage notes

A separate capro, recorded in 1830, is the fish genus Capros, the boarfish: it comes from New Latin capros, from Greek kápros “wild boar”, for the bristly look its scales give the fish.^[5][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 10, 1604
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 746
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli