correggia

Forms

correggia f (plural corregge)^[2] Also coreggia, with a single r that Sabatini–Coletti attribute perhaps to northern dialects.^[3][4] Old Italian forms include coreça, coreza, correia, corria and corrigia.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin corrigia (“shoelace; thong, whip”).^[6][7][8][1] DELI, GRADIT and Treccani consider the Latin word probably Gaulish, and Nocentini explains it as a Celtic loan: it stands isolated in Latin and matches Old Irish con·rig (“binds together”), from a root meaning “to bind” that is productive in the Celtic languages, a pattern seen in other words of material culture.^{[6][8][4][7][9]} De Vaan instead reconstructs a Proto-Italic *kom-rig-jo- (“tying together”) and calls corrigia the only Latin survivor of the Italo-Celtic compound verbs of a root “to stretch, bind”.^[10] Wiktionary's derivation from corrigō (“to make straight”) is rejected by the OLD.^[1][9]

The word is pan-Romance: French courroie, Occitan coreia, Spanish correa, Portuguese correia, Sardinian corria and Romanian curea.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Sienese document of 1263.^[5][7] In the earliest texts the word means a belt or strap, usually of leather, worn round the waist to hold up clothes or to carry things.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used correggia for the waist itself, for any leather strap that holds or ties things together, for part of a horse's harness, and for a whip.^[5] A strap worn round the neck was a sign of humility and submission: Malispini tells of envoys who came to Florence con le corregge al collo a chiedere mercé “with straps round their necks to beg for mercy”.^[11][5] Levare una correggia, literally “to take off a strip”, meant to flay someone.^[5]

The diminutive correggiola is recorded from the second half of the 13th century, and the flail of two sticks joined by a leather strap, coreggiato, from before 1292 in Bono Giamboni.^[7][6] In 19th-century mechanics a correggia perpetua was a drive belt passing the motion from one pulley to another.^[12] Zingarelli and Gabrielli mark the sense “shoelace”, that of the Latin word, as obsolete.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1263 – First record, in a document from Siena.^[5][7]
• Second half of the 13th century – The diminutive correggiola appears.^[7]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni has coreggiato “flail”.^[6]
• 13th century – Malispini writes of envoys with straps round their necks.^[6][11]
• 14th century – Nicolò de' Rossi uses correggia for a fart.^[5]
• 1598 – Scorreggiare is recorded in the sense “to break wind”.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A strap or belt of leather.^[8][2][3]
2. (obsolete) A shoelace.^[13][14]

Word family

• correggiola
• correggiato
• scorreggiare
• scorreggia

Related words

• coreggia
• Latin corrigia
• French courroie

Usage notes

A second correggia (or coreggia), now archaic, means a fart, the same as scoreggia.^[8][2][4] GRADIT dates it to before 1400 and derives it, perhaps, from the strap word, after the crack of a whip.^[8] The TLIO also thinks this probable, while DEI, Devoto and Devoto–Oli take it as a back-formation from scor(r)eggiare.^{[5][15][16][2]} Sacchetti has a character lift his leg and let go una gran coreggia.^[11]

Gabrielli lists the old saying far corregge dell'altrui cuoio, to be generous with other people's property, and perdere la correggia, to lose all restraint.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c 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 d e f g h i Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ a b c d e 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 d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 815
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1121
16. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier