costola

Forms

costola f (plural costole, diminutive costolétta or costolina, augmentative costolóne m)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian chostola and Old Italian costula.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin costŭla, a diminutive of Latin costa (“rib; side”).^[3][4][5][1] In the south of Italy the same diminutive gave Sicilian cosca, the ribs of leaves, and so Italian cosca, a doublet.^[6][7][1]

The base word, Italian costa, continues costa in nearly every Romance language: Romanian coastă, French côte, Spanish cuesta and Portuguese costa.^[7][8] French formed its own diminutive French côtelette.^[7][8]

The origin of costa is unknown.^[9][1] It has been compared with Old Church Slavonic кость (kostĭ, “bone”), a link Derksen thinks possible; de Vaan rejects it, because the Slavic word would go back to the PIE word for “bone” that gave os, and he treats costa as isolated.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Tuscan Andrea da Grosseto, 1268, in the anatomical sense, one of the flat bones of the rib cage.^[2][10] DELI's first record is the 14th-century Italian Bible: Edificoe lo Signore Iddio, della costola ch'egli avea tolta ad Adam, la femina (“The Lord God built the woman from the rib he had taken from Adam”).^[3][11]

Semantic evolution

The bone gave its name to things that look or work like a rib: in Old Italian costola was already the midrib of a leaf, a crosspiece supporting an object and the stave of a barrel.^[2] DELI dates the leaf sense to Matteo Villani (before 1363), the back of a blade, opposite the edge, to Pietro Aretino (1536), and the spine of a book to 1838.^[3] Builders use it for the ribs of a vault, and shipwrights for the frames of a hull.^[5][10]

The story of Eve made the rib proverbial: Franco Sacchetti writes that Eve was born of man, della costola d'Adamo, and essere or venire dalla costola d'Adamo came to mean to be of ancient nobility, often ironically.^[12][10] Stare alle costole di qualcuno is to follow someone closely.^[10][13] In butchery the word names a cut of the loin without the fillet.^[12][5] Tuscan costole d'asino is a wild plant, Hypochaeris radicata, from the 16th century.^[6][13]

Timeline

• 1268 – first record, in Andrea da Grosseto.^[2][10]
• 14th century – the Italian Bible tells how Eve was made from Adam's costola.^[3][11]
• Before 1363 – Matteo Villani uses it for the midrib of a leaf.^[3]
• 1536 – Pietro Aretino uses it for the back of a blade.^[3]
• 16th century – costole d'asino is recorded as a plant name.^[6]
• 1838 – the spine of a book is called costola in Milanese printing.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) rib: each of the twelve pairs of flat curved bones that join the spine to the sternum and form the rib cage; costa.^[5][14]
2. (butchery) The part of the loin of a slaughtered animal without the fillet.^[5][14]
3. The back of a blade, opposite the cutting edge; the back of a comb.^[5][14]
4. The spine of a book or the back of another object.^[5][14][15]
5. (architecture) The rib of a vault; costolone.^[5][14]
6. (botany) The midrib of a leaf; a lengthwise ridge on the surface of an organ.^[5][14]
7. (nautical) Each of the transverse frames that carry the planking of a hull.^[5][14][10]
8. (uncommon) An edge or ridge; a spur of a mountain.^[5][14][10]

Word family

• costoletta
• costolone
• costolato
• costolatura
• costoluto
• costolame
• scostolare

Related words

• costa
• cosca
• French côte

Usage notes

Common phrases are gli si contano le costole (“he is skin and bone”), rompere le costole a qualcuno (“to thrash someone”) and avere qualcuno alle costole (“to have someone always at one's heels”).^[10][13][14] In anatomy costa is the more technical word, costola the everyday one.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1135
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 905
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse