cerchio

Forms

cerchio m (plural cerchi)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian cierchio, Old Italian cerclo and Old Italian zerchio.^[2] An old plural le cerchia gave the feminine noun cerchia.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin circulus (“circle, ring”), through a spoken form Vulgar Latin *circlus that lost its inner vowel.^[3][5][6] The learned doublet of the same Latin word is circolo.^[3][1][6] The noun continues in every Romance language, as French cercle, Occitan cercle and Catalan cercle.^[6][7][8] Italian dialects have forms with and without the vowel loss, and in the south it assimilated, as in Neapolitan and Sicilian.^[6][8]

The Latin noun is a diminutive of circus (“ring, circle”), which also gave circo and archaic Old Italian cerco.^{[9][1][5][10]} Nocentini takes that word from Ancient Greek κίρκος (kírkos, “ring”), a metathesis of κρίκος (kríkos), from the root of curvus (“curved”);^[7][11] GDLI only compares the Greek words.^[7][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, from the last quarter of the 12th century.^[2] GRADIT dates the word about 1274, and DELI's first record, in the sense “circumference”, is in the Mare amoroso at the end of the 13th century.^[12][3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used cerchio for a ring of people, an orbit, a halo of light, a period of time and the edge of a round vessel.^[2] The band that holds the staves of a barrel together is recorded before 1306 in Jacopone da Todi.^[3] Dante's Hell is divided into cerchi, and Petrarch passes di cerchio in cerchio through the heavenly spheres.^[12]

Later senses are the large hoop of gymnasts and circus acrobats (1843) and the children's hoop driven with a stick (1889, D'Annunzio).^[3] The idiom dare un colpo al cerchio e uno alla botte comes from the cooper's work, who strikes in turn the hoop and the staves; figuratively it means to keep in with both sides.^[4][13] From it Italian has made cerchiobottismo and cerchiobottista.^[12]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – Cerchio appears in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur.^[2]
• c. 1274 – GRADIT's date for the word.^[12]
• Late 13th century – The Mare amoroso uses it for a circumference.^[3]
• Before 1306 – Jacopone da Todi uses it for a barrel hoop.^[3]
• 1304–1307 – Dante uses it for the geometric figure in the Convivio.^[6]
• 1843 – The gymnast's hoop is recorded.^[3]
• 1889 – D'Annunzio writes of the children's hoop.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (geometry) A circle, the part of a plane bounded by a circumference, and also the circumference itself: Disegna un cerchio con il compasso.^[12][13][5]
2. A round object, especially a piece of jewellery such as a ring, bracelet or earring.^[12][10]
3. A hoop of metal or wood that binds the staves of a barrel or strengthens a cylindrical object.^[12][13]
4. A hoop used as a toy or as an apparatus in women's gymnastics: giocare col cerchio.^[12][13][4]
5. A hoop once worn to hold a skirt out wide.^[12]
6. Anything that surrounds something else, or people or things arranged in a ring: Un cerchio di bambini si formò attorno al mago.^[12][5]
7. The rim of a wheel: cerchi in lega.^[12][13]
8. (literary) A heavenly sphere, and in Dante's Commedia each of the circles of Hell.^[12]

Word family

• cerchia
• cerchiare
• cerchiato
• cerchiatura
• cerchietto
• cerchione
• cerchiaggio
• accerchiare
• accerchiamento
• semicerchio
• cerchiello
• cerchiobottismo
• cerchiobottista

Related words

• circo
• circolo
• mezzocerchio
• Latin circulus
• French cercle

Usage notes

Set phrases include in cerchio (in a ring), la quadratura del cerchio (squaring the circle, a problem with no solution), avere un cerchio alla testa (to have a headache) and dare un colpo al cerchio e uno alla botte.^[13][4][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c d e Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 14, 619
7. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
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 g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli