colostro

Forms

colostro m (plural colostri)^[1] A feminine colostra also existed.^[2][3] Pistoia has calòstra and Grosseto colèstra.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin colostrum (“first milk”), beside which Latin had a feminine colostra, perhaps from the neuter plural.^{[5][6][7][2][8]} The GDLI calls it a learned word, while DEI stresses that the pastoral term is well represented in the Romance languages and the dialects.^[2][4]

The same word is Spanish calostro, Portuguese costro and Romanian corastă, the last from the feminine.^[6][9] French colostrum is a learned medical word of the 16th century.^[4][10] The Grosseto form agrees with Asturian culiestru of Asturias, and Meyer-Lübke found the variation between ⟨-ostru⟩, ⟨-estru⟩ and ⟨-astru⟩ unexplained.^[4][9]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[5][11][8] DEI calls it a pastoral term of Mediterranean type.^[4] Nocentini derives it from color, older colos, in the sense “film, covering”, and compares Sanskrit शरस् (śáras, “film on boiled milk”).^[6] The word would first have meant the thick layer that forms on milk.^[6] Wiktionary lists further proposals: roots Proto-Indo-European *ḱwel- or *ḱewH- (“to swell”), or a dissimilated *corostra from *ḱerh₂- (“to break, decay”), and finds the link with the word for colour hard in sense and form.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Tuscan translation of Palladius from the first half of the 14th century.^[12][5] It means the first milk of a ewe that has just given birth, drawn off at once: traendone prima un poco di latte il più spesso, il quale i pastori chiamano colostro (“first drawing off a little of the thickest milk, which the shepherds call colostro”).^[2][13][12]

Semantic evolution

The TLIO notes that this first milk was milked away because it was thought harmful to the young.^[12] Renaissance translations of Pliny used the feminine colostra for the first thick milk after birth.^[2] Tommaseo's dictionary gives first the medical sense, the first milk of a woman after childbirth, said to be purgative, and then the first milk of cows and ewes.^[13] DEI records the medical adjective colostrico from the 19th century.^[4]

Today the word belongs to physiology: the yellowish fluid the mammary glands secrete in late pregnancy and in the first days after birth, the newborn's first food.^[7][14][15]

Timeline

• c. 1340 – The Tuscan translation of Palladius calls the first milk colostro.^[5][12]
• 1500s – French borrows the learned colostrum.^[4]
• 1800s – The medical adjective colostrico appears.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (physiology) colostrum, beestings: the yellowish fluid secreted by the mammary glands from late pregnancy until a few days after birth, the newborn's first food.^{[7][14][16][15][1]}

Word family

• colostrale

Related words

• latte
• Latin colostrum

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 319
3. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 310
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1021
5. ^ a b c d 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse