ciglio

Forms

ciglio m (plural (in the literal meanings) ciglia f or (in the figurative meanings or rarely in the literal meanings) cigli m)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian cellio (Arezzo, 1282), Old Italian ciglo (Florence, late 13th century), Old Italian cejo (Genoa, before 1311) and Old Italian giglu (Sicily, 1348).^[2][3] The plural is ciglia (feminine) in the literal senses and cigli (masculine) for the edge and the barbicel, popularly also for the eyelashes.^[4][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cilium (“eyelid”), which in later Latin also meant “eyelash”.^[7][8][4][9] The word lives on in all the Romance languages except Romanian.^[2][9] The same word is French cil and Friulian cej “frown”, and, through the Latin plural cilia taken as a feminine, Occitan celh and Spanish ceja “eyebrow”.^[10][2]

Latin cilium goes back to Proto-Italic *keljom and Proto-Indo-European *ḱel-yo-m, from the root *ḱel- (“to cover, hide”) of cēlō (“to hide”).^[11][1][10] Isidore of Seville already explained the lashes as coverings that hide the eyes.^[12] The word is recorded only from Pliny, later than supercilium (“eyebrow”), which is in Plautus, and some scholars take it as a back-formation from it; de Vaan argues that a noun for “eyelid” must still have existed, since the eyelid hides the eye and the eyebrow does not.^[11][13] Nocentini compares Old High German hulla (“covering”), modern German Hülle.^[10][14]

Battisti and Alessio thought that the late record made a borrowing likely and compared Ancient Greek κύλα (kúla, “the parts under the eyes”), a word quoted by Hesychius.^[9][1] Beekes, as Wiktionary reports, doubts this connection and derives the Greek word from Pre-Greek.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Florentine text of Piero Asino from before 1267, for the row of small hairs that protects the eye along the eyelid or in an arch above it.^[3] An Aretine cellio follows in 1282.^[2] DELI dates the eyelash sense to Dante, the sense “eye, look” to Iacopone (before 1306) and “edge, bank” to Fazio (before 1367).^[7]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word for the whole expression of the face, for the eyelid and for the eye as the organ of sight.^[3] It formed many phrases: levare di ciglio “a trifle”, battere di ciglia “the smallest gesture”, abbassare le ciglia “to lower one's eyes” in humility, and aguzzare le ciglia “to strain to see”.^[3] Dante uses it for an eyebrow, ma l'un de' cigli un colpo avea diviso “but a blow had split one of his eyebrows”.^[12][15]

The sense “edge” goes back to Medieval Latin, where cilium montis is recorded in 1037, and is compared with Greek ophrýs “eyebrow; brow of a hill”.^[9] The augmentative ciglione, the bank of a road or a precipice, appears before 1364.^[7]

In modern biology the plural ciglia names the vibrating filaments of certain cells and microorganisms, and in botany the fine hairs on the margin of leaves and petals.^[4][16]

Timeline

• 1037 – Medieval Latin cilium montis “brow of a hill” is recorded.^[9]
• Before 1267 – Piero Asino uses ciglio for the eyelashes.^[3]
• 1282 – Aretine cellio is recorded.^[2]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone uses it for the eye or look.^[7]
• 1348 – Sicilian giglu appears in Senisio's Declarus.^[2]
• Before 1364 – Ciglione “bank, edge” is recorded in Zanobi da Strata.^[7]
• Before 1367 – Fazio uses ciglio for an edge or bank.^[7]
• Before 1941 – Cigliato “having lashes” is recorded in A. Negri.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. One of the curved hairs along the edge of the eyelid that protect the eye; in the plural, the eyelashes: La bambina ha ciglia nere e folte come la madre.^[16][8][5]
2. The edge of the eyelid itself.^[16][4]
3. By extension, the eyebrow: aggrottare le ciglia, to frown.^[16][6][5]
4. (literary) The eye, the gaze.^[16][5][4]
5. (biology) A cilium, one of the fine vibrating filaments on certain cells and single-celled organisms;^[16][4][5] (botany) one of the fine hairs on the margin of a leaf or petal.^[16][4][5]
6. (zoology) A barbicel of a feather.^[4][16]
7. The edge or verge of a road, ditch or precipice (plural cigli): Camminavano piano sul ciglio del canale.^[16][5][4]

Word family

• ciglione
• sopracciglio
• accigliarsi
• accigliato
• cigliato
• ciglietto

Related words

• cipiglio
• celare
• Latin cilium
• French cil

Usage notes

Senza batter ciglio means without flinching, in un batter di ciglio in an instant, and a ciglio asciutto without tears.^[4][6][17] Beside the plurals ciglia and cigli, old and dialect texts have a feminine singular ciglia with the plural ciglie, formed from the Latin neuter plural as foglia was.^[2]

A southern dialect ciglio “shoot, sprout” (Calabrian cìgghiu) is a separate word, from Latin aculeus (“sting”) in a form *acileus.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 14, 173
3. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 934
10. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ 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
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli