cotto

Forms

cotto (feminine cotta, masculine plural cotti, feminine plural cotte)^[1] Older forms include Old Italian cocto, Old Italian coito and Old Italian coto.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin coctus (“cooked”), the past participle of coquō (“to cook, boil”), and is used in Italian as the past participle of cuocere.^[3][4][1][5] DEI calls the word panromance.^[6] The noun is the same word used as a noun.^[3][1]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *kʷekʷe/o- and PIE *pekʷ- (“to cook”), which also gave Ancient Greek πέσσω (péssō) and Old Church Slavonic пешти (pešti); the participle may continue a PIE *pe/okʷto-.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI dates the first record to 1290, in Florentine texts, with the sense “that has been cooked”; the TLIO’s first quotation is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur super natura feminarum.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the word of food, of boiled wine (vino cotto), of bricks and other materials fired in a kiln, of silk stripped of its gum by boiling (seta cotta), and of skin burnt by heat.^[2] As a noun it meant cooked food (before 1342) and boiled must.^[3][2] In Sicily muratu a cottu “built with bricks” is recorded at Catania in 1349, and cotto “brick, terracotta” in a Venetian document of 1771.^[3]

Figurative senses followed: “drunk” before 1484 (Pulci), “madly in love” before 1535 (Berni), and “exhausted”, of an athlete, from 1964.^[3] The feminine noun cotta went the same way: “a batch fired at once”, “drunkenness”, “a sudden passion” (1825) and an athlete’s collapse (1942).^[3] Furbo di tre cotte “an utter rogue” comes from sugar and spirits cooked several times to refine them.^[3] Tuscan proverbs have casca come una pera cotta, said of someone who gives in too easily.^[8]

Timeline

• 1290 – Cotto “cooked” is recorded in Florentine texts.^[3]
• Before 1342 – Cavalca uses cotto “cooked food”.^[3]
• 1349 – Muratu a cottu “built with bricks” is recorded at Catania.^[3]
• Before 1484 – Pulci uses cotto “drunk”.^[3]
• Before 1535 – Berni uses cotto “madly in love”.^[3]
• 1771 – Cotto “brick” appears in a Venetian document.^[3]
• 1964 – Cotto “exhausted”, of an athlete, is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. cooked: patate ben cotte; also of clay and bricks fired in a kiln (see terracotta).^{[9][10][11][1]}
2. Scorched, burnt by the sun, fire or frost.^[9][12][13]
3. (figurative) exhausted, worn out, especially of an athlete.^{[9][10][5][1]}
4. (colloquial) drunk;^[10][12][14] ubriaco cotto, dead drunk.^[10][12][14]
5. (colloquial) Madly in love;^{[9][12][13][1]} innamorato cotto, head over heels.^{[9][12][13][1]}

Noun

1. terracotta brick or tile, and work made of it: un pavimento in cotto.^{[9][12][5][1]}
2. Cooked ham, short for prosciutto cotto.^[9]
3. (winemaking) Must concentrated by long boiling, used to strengthen weak musts and in some wines.^[9][12][13]
4. (uncommon) Cooked food.^[9][13]

Word family

• cotta
• cottura
• cottoio
• precotto
• semicotto
• incotto
• cotticcio
• stracotto

Related words

• biscotto
• cuocere
• terracotta
• Latin coquō

Usage notes

Set phrases include cadere come una pera cotta “to fall heavily; to be easily taken in”, farne di cotte e di crude “to get up to all sorts of things” and né cotto né crudo “indecisive”.^[5][10][13] A separate, technical cotto names a fish of the genus Cottus, such as the bullhead; it comes from New Latin Cottus, from Greek kóttos, a fish name in Aristotle.^[9][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 h i j k l m n o 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1140
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
10. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
12. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli