cenericcio

Forms

cenericcio (feminine cenericcia, masculine plural cenericci, feminine plural cenericce)^[1] A literary variant is cinericcio, beside the learned cinerizio.^[2][3][4] Dialect forms include Corsican cinnaricciu and Neapolitan cennericcio (1689).^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin cinericius (“ash-coloured; baked in the ashes”), a derivative of cinis, cineris (“ash”).^{[2][6][4][7][8][1]} The LEI counts it among the popular continuations of the Latin adjective, beside learned cinerizio.^[5][4] GRADIT and Devoto–Oli instead describe it as an Italian formation, from Italian cenere + -iccio, which is also how it reads on the surface.^[9][10][1]

The Latin adjective is formed with the suffix -icius on the stem of the noun.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the feminine cenericia, said of a stone in the Lapidario estense, from the area of Treviso and Friuli in the first half of the 14th century, with the sense “ash-coloured”.^[11][5]

Semantic evolution

In Tuscan prose the word appears with Leon Battista Alberti (about 1442), who gives a sickly neighbour a withered, ash-grey face (il resto del viso vizzo et cenericcio).^[5][7] From the start it often meant a pale, unpleasant grey, and the modern dictionaries still note this disparaging tone.^[7][9][10]

As a noun it named a small heap of discarded ash kept in a bucket or a corner of the hearth (Florio 1598 to Veneroni 1681), and, from 1831, in Tommaseo, an ash colour.^[5] Literary writers preferred cinericcio: D'Annunzio describes the weather as cinericcio.^[5][10] In zoology the word names species such as the airone cenerino, for which GRADIT lists aghirone cenericcio.^[9]

Timeline

• 1300–1350 – The feminine cenericia appears in the Lapidario estense.^[11]
• Before 1438 – GRADIT's date for the Italian adjective.^[9]
• c. 1442 – Leon Battista Alberti uses cenericcio of a face.^[5]
• 1598 – Florio records the noun for a heap of waste ash.^[5]
• 1689 – Neapolitan cennericcio is recorded.^[5]
• 1831 – Tommaseo uses the noun for the colour of ash.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a dull ash-grey colour, often with a sense of dirtiness or sickliness: un cielo cenericcio sopra i campi.^{[9][10][2][6]}

Related words

• cenere
• cinerizio
• cenerino
• Latin cinis

Usage notes

GRADIT marks the word as rare, and Treccani as uncommon.^[9][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
4. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ 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. 14, 311
6. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ 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, 962
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
12. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana