corniolo

Forms

corniolo m (plural cornioli)^[1] It is stressed either còrniolo or corniòlo, and has the variant corgnolo.^[2][3][4] The Old Italian forms are corniuolo and corgnolo.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin corneolus, a diminutive of corneus, the adjective of cornus (“cornel”).^[6][7][3][1] DEI and the GDLI call the Latin word Late Latin and cite it from Afranius and Petronius.^[8][9] The OLD has it as an adjective meaning “made of cornel wood”.^[10] Nocentini and Devoto–Oli speak only of a diminutive of the Latin adjective, while GRADIT derives the word within Italian from the older cornio with the suffix -olo.^[11][2][12] The variant corgnolo is the popular outcome of Vulgar Latin *corniòlu, with the stress on the suffix.^[3]

Other Romance languages formed their names for the tree and its fruit with other suffixes: French cornouille (the fruit) is a derivative of the Latin tree name in ⟨-ulla⟩, which in turn gave the tree name cornouiller.^[11][13] The same family includes Spanish cornejo and cornizo, Portuguese corniso and Romanian corn.^[13]

For the debated origin of the Latin tree name (pre-Indo-European, or from the root of cornū (“horn”)), see the entry for the older form.^[6][11][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Simintendi of Prato, before 1333, for the shrub Cornus mas, with oval leaves and small yellow flowers.^[5][7] DELI's first record is later, in C. Landino before 1498.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Landino's Italian Pliny names the corniolo among the plants cultivated with care, “perché paia ch'ogni cosa sia nato pel ventre de l'uomo” (so that everything seems born for man's belly).^[9]

Nineteenth-century botany used the word for the whole genus, of about a dozen species, most of them garden shrubs; the best known, the cornelian cherry, was popularly called corgnolo or cornaio, and its sour fruits, the corniole, were thought refreshing.^[15] Its very hard wood was good for turning and carving, and was later used for machine parts that suffer heavy wear.^[15][9][4] The fruits are eaten with sugar, and the seed yields oil.^[4]

The red semiprecious stone corniola “carnelian” is named after the colour of the fruit.^[6]

Timeline

• 1295 – Medieval Latin corniola “carnelian” is recorded at Rome.^[6]
• Before 1333 – Simintendi of Prato has the first record of corniolo.^[5][7]
• c. 1350 – Corniola “cornelian cherry” appears in the Italian Crescenzi.^[6]
• Before 1498 – C. Landino uses corniolo in his translation of Pliny.^[6][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The cornel or cornelian cherry (Cornus mas), a shrub or small tree of the dogwood family with oval leaves, yellow flowers in umbels and red, edible, sour fruits.^{[12][2][3][1]}
2. The very hard wood of this tree.^[12][16]
3. A related shrub, Cornus sanguinea, more often called sanguinella.^[4]

Word family

• corniola

Related words

• cornio
• corgnolo
• Latin cornus
• French cornouiller

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ 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)
5. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1115
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, p. 3, 788
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli