colle

colle¹ hill

Etymology tree of colle¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin collis

Italian colle

From the same root · colle¹

Latin collīnus ← collis

Pronunciation

• /ˈkɔl.le/^[1]

Forms

colle m (plural colli)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the hill is inherited from Latin collis (“hill”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word lives on in Friulian cuèl, Occitan col and Portuguese colle, and Old Occitan and Old Catalan have the plural cols.^[3][5][6]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *kolnis.^[7][1] Nocentini compares Lithuanian kálnas, Ancient Greek κολωνός (kolōnós) and Old English hyll (whence hill), all meaning “hill”, and traces them to the root that is also in -cellō (“to rise”) and celsus (“high”).^[3] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *kolH-n- (“hill”), from the root *kelH- (“to rise, tower”), and explains the missing trace of the laryngeal in Latin by the “de Saussure effect”; he finds the alternative reconstruction that Nussbaum proposed less likely.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Florentine document of 1256, in which a piece of land is said to lie al colle “at the hill”.^[2][8][4] The TLIO dates the Florentine record that has it to 1255–1290, where it is spelled chole.^[9][6]

Semantic evolution

From the beginning the word named a modest rise of the land with gentle slopes.^[9] Old Italian had the phrase in piano e in colle “on the plain and on the hill”, meaning “everywhere”, used the hill as a figure for Parnassus and poetic achievement, and also called the highest part of a mountain colle del monte.^[9] Dante opens the Commedia with the poet reaching the foot of a hill: Ma poi ch'i' fui al piè d'un colle giunto “But when I had come to the foot of a hill”.^[8][10] In the Inferno it also names the top of an embankment, the edge of a ditch in Malebolge.^[11]

Rome is la città dei sette colli, “the city of the seven hills”.^[12][13][11] In journalism il Colle stands for the Quirinal hill, where the palace of the President of the Republic is, and by extension for the presidency itself.^[14][12][15] The economist Vilfredo Pareto spoke of a colle del piacere, the set of satisfactions an economic agent can reach.^[11] The word is common in place names such as Colle di Val d'Elsa.^[4][12]

Timeline

• 1255–1290 – Chole is recorded in Florentine accounts.^[6][9]
• 1256 – A Florentine document has colle “hill”.^[2][4]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses colle in his translation of Orosius.^[6]
• c. 1313 – Dante uses the word in the Commedia.^[6]
• 14th century – The derivative collina is first recorded.^[3]
• 1726 – Anton Maria Salvini uses colligiano “typical of the hills”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hill: a modest rise of the ground, usually covered with vegetation; a poggio or collina: Dalla cima del colle si vedeva il lago.^{[4][14][16][15]}
2. (journalism) il Colle: the Quirinale hill in Rome, and by extension the presidency of the Italian Republic.^[14][12][15]
3. (archaic) The top or upper edge of an embankment.^[15][11]

Word family

• collina
• colligiano
• collicello
• collinare
• collinoso
• scollinare

colle² mountain pass

Pronunciation

• /ˈkɔl.le/^[1]

Forms

colle m (plural colli)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the mountain pass is probably borrowed from French col, which has had this sense since 1635, from Latin collum (“neck”).^[2][14][4] The Latin noun could already mean a passage between two mountains in Statius, but DELI, following Zamboni, takes the late record and the Alpine setting of the Italian word to point to the French one.^[2]

Battisti and Alessio, the GDLI and the Treccani derive it instead within Italian from collo in an old sense “summit of a mountain that can be crossed”, reshaped after the word for the hill.^[17][8][11] Zingarelli and Gabrielli also start from the neck word.^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is from Carlo Botta in 1834, who tells how troops forced il colle dell'Argentera, a pass in the Alps.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The word is used above all of the passes of the western Alps, such as the Colle di Tenda and the Colle di Cadibona, and before a consonant it is often shortened to col in place names (Col di Tenda, Col di Nava).^[12][8][15] The GDLI files under this word an older sense, “summit of a mountain that can be crossed”, in Bono Giamboni's translation of Vegetius: pigli alcuno colle di monte “let him take some mountain top”.^[8][10] Gabrielli also records a sense “river bend of a particular kind”.^[13]

Timeline

• 1635 – French col is recorded in the sense “mountain pass”.^[2]
• 1834 – Carlo Botta uses colle for an Alpine pass.^[2][8][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (geography) A mountain pass: a dip in the crest of a range that links two valleys; a passo or valico: il Colle del Gran San Bernardo.^{[4][14][12][15]}
2. A river bend of a particular kind.^[13]