carnaio

Forms

carnaio m (plural carnai)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian carnar and Old Italian carnario.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin carnārium (“meat larder”), from carō (“meat, flesh”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin word, recorded from Plautus, meant a larder or rack for meat.^[6][7] From the 8th century Christian Latin used it for a place where the bodily remains of the dead are kept.^[6] The Latin ending -ārium became -aio as usual in Tuscan.^[8]

The burial sense is shared with French charnier, Old Occitan carner, Catalan carner (“tomb”), Old Spanish carnero (“burial”) and the Sursilvan carner (“ossuary”).^[6][9] The sense “meat larder” lives on in a few northern dialects and in Sardinian karrárdzu (“pit for roasting a boar”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Florentine poet Rustico Filippi, before 1300, in the sense “common grave”: he says a man stinks more che carnaio.^[10][2][11]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th and 16th centuries the carnaio was the pit of a hospital or a town where the poor were buried: Varchi mentions saltpetre dug from the carnaio of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence.^[11] The older sense “store for butchered meat” is recorded in Caro, 1539.^[6]

From the 19th century the word took on the senses “heap of bodies” (Giusti, before 1850) and “slaughter” (Fanfani, 1855).^[10] In 1953 it is first recorded for a beach or other place crowded with half-naked people,^[10] and today it is often said of any packed place.^[4][12] Hunters use it for a pit of rotting meat that draws predators into traps.^[4][13]

Timeline

• Before 1300 – Rustico Filippi uses carnaio for a common grave.^[10][2]
• 1539 – Annibal Caro uses it for a store for meat.^[6]
• Before 1850 – Giusti uses it for a mass of human bodies.^[10]
• 1855 – Fanfani records the sense “slaughter”.^[10]
• 1953 – First record for a crowded beach.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A common grave, especially in war or an epidemic.^[4][12][14] Also a heap of corpses.^[4][12][14]
2. A slaughter, massacre: fare un carnaio, to slaughter many.^[4][12][15]
3. (figurative, derogatory) A packed crowd, especially of half-naked people, or the crowded place itself: la piscina era un carnaio.^[4][5][14]
4. (archaic) A room where butchered meat is kept.^[4][12][5]
5. (hunting) A pit of rotting meat used to lure and trap predators.^[4][12]

Word family

• carnaiolo

Related words

• carne
• carniere
• carneficina
• Latin carnarium
• French charnier

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ 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. 12, 223
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana