colombino

Forms

colombino (feminine colombina, masculine plural colombini, feminine plural colombine)^[1] Old forms include colonbino, columbina, Venetian colonbim and Sicilian columbinu.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin columbīnus (“of doves; dove-coloured”), from columba (“dove”) with the adjective suffix -īnus.^{[3][4][5][6][1]} Sabatini–Coletti treats it as an Italian derivative of colombo with the suffix -ino.^[7]

The Latin adjective also continues in Engadine Romansh culombin, Old French colombine (about 1224), Old Occitan colombina, Catalan colomí and, as a later word, Portuguese columbino (1614).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a document from Prato of 1247, in the sense “dove-coloured, white”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian it meant first “of doves”: a 14th-century treatise on hawks prescribes carne columbina, pigeon meat, for a sick falcon.^[2] Sterco colombino, dove dung used as manure, is in Bosone da Gubbio (1333), who tells that it sold for silver in Jerusalem, and in Giovanni Villani; used as a noun, colombino alone came to mean the dung itself, as early as the Florentine translation of Crescenzi.^{[2][9][10][8]}

Its colour sense was white, then greyish and violet: an old textile term colombino named a white cloth, and in the 19th century Tommaseo explains it as a grey now called “pigeon's throat”.^[2][11] For the figurative sense “pure, simple”, the Fioretti speak of “dove-like simplicity”.^[11][9] Modern technical uses include the pietra or sasso colombino, a hard grey-blue stone used to make lime (REW records sasso colombino for a river pebble), petto colombino for the narrow, jutting chest of rickets, and in pottery the colombino, a coil of clay with which vasi a colombino are built up.^{[5][4][10][12][13]}

Timeline

• 1247 – A Prato document has the colour sense.^[2]
• 1333 – Sterco colombino appears in Bosone da Gubbio.^[2]
• First half of the 14th century – The Florentine translation of Crescenzi uses colombino for dove dung as manure.^[8]
• 1499 – The adverb columbinualmente “like doves” appears in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.^[8]
• 1878 – Dossi uses colombinamente.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a dove or pigeon; dovelike: petto colombino, pigeon chest.^{[5][4][14][1]}
2. Dove-coloured: white, or tending to grey or violet.^{[5][7][14][1]}
3. (figurative) Pure, innocent.^[5][14][1]
4. (geology) In pietra colombina and sasso colombino: a hard, porous, bluish stone used to make lime.^[5][12]

Noun

1. Dove or pigeon dung, used as manure; the same as colombina.^[10][9][1]
2. (ceramics) A roll of clay used to build up coil pots, vasi a colombino.^[5][4][15]

Word family

• colombina
• colombinamente

Related words

• colombo
• colomba
• colombano
• Latin columbīnus

Usage notes

GRADIT lists four other words spelled colombino.^[5] A bird name formed from colombo with -ino (1830) is another name for the black tern, mignattino.^[5][10] A vine name (before 1597) is the same as colombano.^[5][9] A regional word for a foundling (1768), also formed from colombo, is compared with Milanese colombitt.^[5] A 20th-century adjective means “of Santa Colomba”, a place in the province of Siena.^[5]

The TLIO also has an Old Italian colombino (1322) for brazilwood or ginger from Kollam (Quilon) in southwestern India, from the Italian name of that city.^[2] Tommaseo records colombino as a diminutive “little dove”, said of two lovers or a favourite.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
4. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d e Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 15, 1157
9. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
10. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli