ciliegia

Forms

ciliegia f (plural ciliegie or ciliege, diminutive ciliegìna, augmentative ciliegióna)^[1] The older Tuscan form is Old Italian ciriegia, which dictionaries still list as archaic or regional.^[2][3][4] Old Italian texts also have ceresgia and ciriege.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cerĕsea, first recorded in Italian as Old Italian ciriegia.^[5][6][7][2] Nocentini explains the Vulgar Latin noun as the neuter plural of Late Latin ceresium, a variant of classical Latin cerasium (“cherry”), reinterpreted as a feminine singular.^[6][1] DELI instead derives it from *cerĕsium, the name of the tree that gave ciliegio, a popular form beside classical cĕrasus.^[5] The Latin words come from Ancient Greek κεράσιον (kerásion, “cherry”), from κερασός (kerasós, “bird cherry”), which is thought to come from a language of Asia Minor.^[1][8][6] Nocentini notes that the cultivated cherry reached Italy from Pontus in the 1st century BC, but that the wild species already grew in Greece and Italy.^[6]

The same word is French cerise, Spanish cereza, Portuguese cereja, Sardinian cariasa and Romanian cireașă.^[6][9] The Italian dialects continue two Latin variants: *cerasea in the centre and south and *ceresea in the north, and both were found in Tuscany.^[6][5] The first survives in the regional word cerasa.^[1][10] The northern variant reached Florence as the form with /r/, and DEI and Devoto see northern sound development in the /dʒ/ of the ending.^[8][11][6]

Castellani, quoted by DELI, explains the change of /r/ to /l/ between the 16th and 17th centuries: after /r/ the diphthong /jɛ/ was hard to pronounce, and Florence kept the diphthong but replaced the consonant.^[5] The form with /l/ was Florentine from the 17th century on and was accepted by the literary language.^[5][6] From Latin the word passed into German Kirsche, Welsh ceirios and Basque, while the English word cherry was borrowed from French.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Florentine document of 1286–1290, with the form ciriegia and the sense “fruit of the cherry tree”.^[2][12] DELI's first literary record is the Novellino, at the end of the 13th century, where a peasant complains that a neighbour has stolen his cherries (ciriege).^[5][10]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already had the phrase ciriegia amarasca for the sour cherry, the same as amarena.^[2] Boccaccio writes of peasants who gorge on figs, cherries or melons, and Sacchetti of a basket of cherries spilled all over a street.^[10]

The form ciliegia is recorded from 1620, and ciliegio for the tree from 1694.^[5] In the 19th century Tommaseo–Bellini treated ciliegia as the commoner form and recorded proverbs such as rosso come una ciliegia (“red as a cherry”).^[13] The colour sense, a bright red, is used invariably after a noun.^[7][3][14]

Set phrases include una ciliegia tira l'altra, said of pleasant things one cannot stop at, and the jocular amico ciliegia, the worm in the fruit and hence a person everybody knows but nobody names.^[7][3][14] Exotic fruits are named after the cherry, such as ciliegia del Brasile (the pitanga) and ciliegia marina, another name of the strawberry-tree fruit.^[14]

Timeline

• 1286–1290 – Ciriegia appears in a Florentine document.^[2]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses ciriege.^[5]
• 1620 – The form ciliegia is first recorded, in A. Allegri.^[5]
• 1694 – Ciliegio for the tree is recorded, in F. Baldovini.^[5]
• 1861 – Tommaseo–Bellini calls ciliegia commoner than ciriegia.^[13]
• 1875 – Ciliegio is used for the wood, in C. Collodi.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. cherry, the round red fruit of the cherry tree, with sweet or slightly sour flesh: un cestino di ciliegie mature.^[7][3][1]
2. (masculine, invariable) Cherry red, a bright red tending to pink.^[7][3]

Adjective

1. (invariable, after the noun) Cherry-red: una sciarpa ciliegia.^[7][4][1]

Word family

• ciliegio
• ciliegina
• ciliegino
• ciliegiolo
• ciliegeto

Related words

• cerasa
• Latin cerasus
• French cerise

Usage notes

The plural is ciliegie or ciliege.^[3][4][1] The proverb una ciliegia tira l'altra is said of things that follow one another without a break.^[3][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
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 k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 935
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)