cellaio

Forms

cellaio m (plural cellai)^[1]

Etymology

For the storeroom it is inherited from Late Latin cellārium (“storeroom, larder”), from cella (“store-room, cellar”).^[1][2][3][4] For the person in charge of it, the word continues Latin cellārius (“storekeeper”), the Latin adjective “of a storeroom” with the suffix of trades.^{[5][2][6][4][7]}

The Latin word first appears in the jurist Cervidius Scaevola, at the end of the 2nd century, for a room of a building, and in Tertullian, early in the 3rd, for a store of food; in the 6th century Cassiodorus calls it the popular word.^[8] It was taken early into Germanic, as Old High German kellari (German Keller), with its /k/ kept.^[8] The same word is French cellier, Old Occitan celier, Catalan celler, Spanish cillero and Portuguese celeiro.^[9][8] Tuscan borrowed the French word as celliere and cigliere,^[9][4] and cellario is the learned form of the same Latin word.^[6][1]

De Vaan suggests that the Latin noun may go back to a form with a long vowel, which would connect it with cēlō (“to conceal”), or be an old diminutive; a root Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to hide”) is possible but uncertain.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Florentine document of 1286, in the sense “store-room for food”.^[11][8] The sense “steward of the larder” appears at the end of the 13th century in the will of Lemmo di Balduccio.^[11][4]

Semantic evolution

Catherine of Siena used the word figuratively, calling priests portinai... del cellaio di Dio, the doorkeepers of God's cellar, which she explains as the blood of Christ.^[3] Bernardino of Siena speaks of grain gathered in granaries and wine in the cellaio.^[3]

In modern Italian both senses are archaic; 20th-century writers still used the word for a wine cellar with presses and barrels, and Alberto Savinio for the man who keeps the wine.^[3][5][2]

Timeline

• 1286 – A Florentine document has cellaio for a storeroom.^[11][8]
• Late 13th century – The will of Lemmo di Balduccio uses it for the steward.^[11][4]
• 1290 – Zingarelli's date for the storeroom sense.^[5]
• 1471 – The Tuscan Bible of Malerbi has cellai for food stores.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic) A cellar or larder; a celliere.^[2][5][12]
2. (archaic) A cellarer or steward: the person who looks after the cellar or the larder.^[6][13][14]
3. A wine shop.^[1]

Related words

• cella
• celliere
• cellario
• celleraio
• Latin cellarium
• German Keller

Usage notes

GRADIT also gives cellaio as a variant of cellario.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
3. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 953
4. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 845
5. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. 13, 777
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
12. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)