cogliere

Forms

cogliere (first-person singular present còlgo, first-person singular past historic còlsi, past participle còlto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old and dialect forms include Bolognese coglere, Genoese cogere, Venetian coier and Lombard colie.^[2] The literary and popular form corre is used beside it.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin collĭgere (“to gather, collect”), formed from co(n)- (“together”) and legō (“to gather; to choose”).^[5][6][7][1] Throughout Romance the base is an early syncopated form;^[2][8] Sabatini–Coletti start from a Vulgar Latin form stressed on the first syllable, whose unstressed vowel was lost and whose /lɡ/ became the palatal /ʎ/.^[2][8] The reduced corre goes back to a shortened form with assimilation.^[8] Only Romanian culege, Engadine cleger and the Istriot dialects keep the unsyncopated form.^[2]

The verb is pan-Romance: Old French cueillir, Occitan colhir, Catalan collir, Spanish coger, Portuguese colher and Sardinian coglire.^[6][9] The French verb, recorded from about 980, and the Catalan one moved to the fourth conjugation.^[2] DEI sees the Latin sense “to infer” as a calque of Ancient Greek συλλέγω (sullégō).^[10]

De Vaan traces the simple verb to a present Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to collect”), also the source of Ancient Greek λέγω (légō, “to gather; to say”).^[11] The same Latin verb gave leggere.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur of the late 12th century, and the LEI's Bolognese coglere is in Guido Faba's Parlamenti of about 1243.^[12][2] The first sense was to pick flowers, fruit or herbs from a plant.^[12][6] DELI's first record, in Bono Giamboni before 1292, means “to take, gather”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Dante has the senses “to take by surprise” and “to strike”, and the sense “to infer” is recorded in Giordano da Pisa in 1305–1306;^[5] “to understand” follows only in Grazzini, before 1566.^[5] In Inferno 13 Dante breaks a twig from a thorn: colsi un ramicel da un gran pruno.^[13][4] Old Italian also used the verb for collecting taxes and tolls (Giovanni Villani's coglievano pedaggio), and colta was a tax.^[4][9]

Petrarch's line e ’l più bel fior ne colse became, as Il più bel fior ne coglie, the motto of the Accademia della Crusca.^[4] Leopardi uses the poetic còr: a còr dell’acqua.^[4][3] In sailors' language the verb means to coil a rope.^[14][4]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur.^[12]
• c. 1243 – Bolognese coglere in Guido Faba.^[2]
• 1280–1297 – Coglitore “one who gathers” is recorded.^[5]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses cogliere “to take, gather”.^[5]
• 1304–1307 – Dante uses it of flowers and fruit in the Convivio.^[2]
• 1305–1306 – Giordano da Pisa uses it for “to infer”.^[5]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for “to surprise” and “to strike”.^[5]
• Before 1566 – Grazzini uses it for “to understand”.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pick flowers, fruit or vegetables from a plant or the ground: Abbiamo colto le pesche nell’orto.^[7][3][8]
2. To gather, take;^[7][3][4] (figurative) to reap: cogliere i frutti del proprio lavoro.^[7][3][4]
3. To grasp, seize; to take an opportunity: cogliere l’occasione, cogliere la palla al balzo.^[7][3][14]
4. To surprise, catch: cogliere in flagrante, cogliere alla sprovvista; of a storm, an illness or a feeling, to come upon someone: La pioggia ci sorprese, anzi ci colse a metà sentiero.^[7][8][4]
5. To hit a target;^[7][3][4] cogliere nel segno, to hit the mark, guess right.^[7][3][4]
6. (figurative) To understand, grasp a meaning or an allusion.^[7][3][8]
7. (nautical) To coil a rope so that it can run freely.^[14][4]
8. (archaic) To collect money, a toll.^[7][8][14]
9. (intransitive, literary) To befall, in mal te ne colga.^[7][8][4]

Word family

• coglitore
• coglitura
• accogliere
• accoglienza
• accoglimento
• raccogliere
• raccoglimento
• raccoglitore
• raccolto
• raccolta
• incogliere
• ricogliere

Related words

• leggere
• colto
• Latin colligo

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 d e f g h i j k l m 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 h i 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1003
11. ^ 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 c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 262
14. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli