conca

Forms

conca f (plural conche)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian concha, Old Italian conka and Old Italian chonca.^[2][3] South of a line from the Alban Hills to Ancona the dialects voice the consonant after the nasal, giving a type conga.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin concha (“shell; vessel”), from Ancient Greek κόγχη (kónkhē, “mussel, shell; shell-like hollow”).^{[5][6][7][4][1]} Latin had both the sense “shell” (Plautus) and “vessel” (Cato).^[4] DELI calls the Greek word Indo-European.^[5][8]

It survives in all the Romance languages except Romanian.^[4] The same word is Sardinian conca (“valley” in Old Sardinian), Occitan conca (a grain measure), Catalan conca (“bowl, trough”), Spanish cuenca (“bowl, eye socket”) and Portuguese conca (“bowl, ear”).^[9][6] It is common as a place name in Tyrol and Switzerland.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Dottrinale of Mayfredo di Belmonte from Vercelli, 1225.^[2] The LEI files this northern concha under the sense “vessel, container”.^[3] The TLIO's first sense is the shell of sea creatures.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the word for shells, for hollow parts of the body, for a hollow in the ground, and above all for a broad, low vessel: a basin for washing, a flower pot, a baptismal font, and a unit of measure.^[2] In Giovanni Villani the emperor bathes at the Lateran in the conca del paragone.^[10][11] The big earthenware tub for doing the laundry, the conca da bucato, is the sense DELI dates to Dante.^[5][10]

The geographical sense of a hollow among mountains is dated by DELI to Carlo Botta in 1835.^[5] DELI quotes Rodolico that before the 19th century Tuscan writers preferred catino for such a basin.^[5] Technical senses followed: the conca di navigazione, a canal lock, the conca absidale of an apse, and the conche nasali of anatomy.^[7][8][12] In central Italy a conca was also a copper water jar with two handles, carried on the head.^[7][12] English took concha as a term of architecture in 1613–1639.^[13]

Timeline

• 1225 – Mayfredo di Belmonte uses concha at Vercelli.^[2][3]
• 1287–1330 – Bolognese conca appears in the life of Saint Petronius.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses conca for a laundry vessel.^[5]
• 1373–1374 – Boccaccio's Esposizioni use the word for a large vessel.^[3]
• 1613–1639 – English concha is recorded in architecture.^[13]
• Before 1730 – Conchifero, “bearing a shell”, appears in Vallisneri.^[5]
• 1835 – Carlo Botta uses conca for a basin among mountains.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large earthenware vessel, wider at the mouth than at the base, once used for doing the laundry or holding water.^{[7][14][8][12]}
2. (regional) A copper jar with two handles, used in central Italy to fetch water.^[7][8][15]
3. The contents of such a vessel, a concata.^[7][8][15]
4. (geography) A basin or hollow in the ground, or a wide, roughly round valley.^{[7][14][15][1]}
5. (anatomy) A concave structure shaped like a shell: conche nasali (the nasal turbinates) and the concha of the outer ear.^[7][8][16]
6. (agriculture) A hollow dug around the trunk of a tree for watering or manuring it.^[7][14][12]
7. (architecture) The half-dome of an apse, the catino: conca absidale.^[7][15][16]
8. (hydraulics) A canal lock: conca di navigazione.^[7][8][17]
9. A machine for refining fine pastes, especially chocolate.^[7]
10. (literary) A shell, a conch, also the shell blown by tritons.^{[7][8][17][1]}

Word family

• concata
• conchetta
• conchina
• concone
• concaio
• sconcare
• sconcatura
• inconcare
• conchifero

Related words

• conchiglia
• catino
• Latin concha

Usage notes

Conca fessa, a cracked basin, is a person of poor health, as in the proverb dura più una conca fessa che una sana, a sickly person outlives a healthy one.^[17][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it
4. ^ a b c d Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 16, 932
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b 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 l m 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 317
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana