casale

Forms

casale m (plural casali)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian casal, Old Italian caxal and Old Italian chaxalle, mostly from the north.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin casālis (“belonging to a house”), used as a noun.^[1][3][4][5] GRADIT and Treccani take it from the Medieval Latin noun casāle.^[6][7] The Late Latin adjective is formed from Latin casa + -ālis.^[1] It is found as an adjective in the land surveyors' texts of the 6th century and as a noun in Gregory the Great, and ⟨casale Petroniano⟩ is recorded at Ravenna in 564.^[8] The Medieval Latin noun is recorded at Spoleto in 748 and at Rome in the 9th century.^[9] Prati dates it from 765.^[5]

The same word is Dalmatian kasuól (“pigsty”), Friulian ciasâl, Old French chesal (“rural building”), Old Occitan casal, Catalan casal, Spanish casal and Portuguese casal (“farmstead”).^[8][10][1] Logudorese kazale means “large, old”.^[10]

The origin of Latin casa (“hut, cottage”) is unknown: its single ⟨s⟩ between vowels points to a loanword.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Venetian document of 1253.^[2] DELI's first record, in a 13th-century Florentine chronicle, has the sense “unwalled rural settlement”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named a village or small rural settlement, often in the Levant: the Venetian Zibaldone da Canal (1310–1330) has chaxalli d'Armenia and casalli de Aleppo, and Giovanni Villani of the Saracens raiding the casali around Acre.^[8][13] Frescobaldi's travel account explains casale as castello sanza mura (“a castle without walls”).^[14] The sense “country house” is recorded before 1342 in D. Cavalca.^[12] About 1300 the word also meant “lineage, family”, in Giovanni da Vignano.^[8][2]

In northern Italy it also came to mean a ruined rural house, while Sicilian and Calabrian casali are hamlets.^[9] The word is frequent in place names, such as ⟨Casale Monferrato⟩ and ⟨Casalpusterlengo⟩.^[7][15] English borrowed it as casal in 1506.^[16]

Timeline

• 564 – Casale Petroniano is recorded at Ravenna.^[8]
• 748 – The Medieval Latin noun is recorded at Spoleto.^[9]
• 1253 – A Venetian document has the first Italian record.^[2]
• 13th century – A Florentine chronicle uses it for an unwalled settlement.^[12]
• About 1300 – Giovanni da Vignano uses casale for “lineage”.^[8]
• Before 1342 – D. Cavalca uses it for a country house.^[12]
• 1506 – English casal is recorded.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small group of rural houses, a hamlet, often part of a comune.^{[6][3][17][7]}
2. An isolated rustic building, a farmhouse in the countryside, especially (originally fortified) in the Roman campagna: Hanno comprato un vecchio casale da restaurare.^[6][18][3]

Word family

• casalingo
• casalinga
• casalino

Related words

• casa
• casolare

Usage notes

In central Italy the word also means a country house.^[4] The diminutive casalino and augmentative casalone are recorded.^[4][7]

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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 249
6. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
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. 12, 968
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 788
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 826
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
16. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
18. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier