crestato

Forms

crestato (feminine crestata, masculine plural crestati, feminine plural crestate)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cristātus (“crested”), with the vowel of cresta.^[2][3][4][1] Devoto describes it as the Latin word crossed with the Italian noun.^[5] An older learned form, cristato, kept the Latin vowel.^[6][7][8] The same Latin adjective gave Romanian crestat, Catalan crestat and Spanish crestado, and French has cresté.^[9][10]

Cristātus is formed from crista (“crest, plume”) with the suffix -ātus.^[11][1] The noun is from Proto-Italic *kristā- and Proto-Indo-European *kris-th₂-, of the same stem as crīnis (“hair”) and crispus (“curly”).^[12][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Ciampolo di Meo Ugurgieri's Sienese version of the Aeneid, early in the 14th century, where a helmet is “crested”, that is, topped with a plume.^[2][8][13] The TLIO's first example is in Cecco d'Ascoli's Acerba, before 1327, of a fish that has a crest.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The adjective was used of birds and other animals with a crest, as in Sannazaro's “crested cock” that greets the coming day.^[8][6] Of helmets it means plumed, and 20th-century writers use it of the crested helmets of Roman legionaries and of cavalrymen.^[8][4]

From the shape of a crest came the sense “jagged, toothed”: Galileo described the line between the dark and the lit part of the Moon as crestata, wavy and notched.^[13][6] In literary use a wave is crestata when its crest is white with foam.^[7][8] In heraldry the word describes dolphins, dragons and cocks whose crest is of a different tincture.^[15][6] In zoology it forms many names of crested species, such as tritone crestato and pinguino crestato.^[3]

Timeline

• Early 1300s – Ugurgieri's Aeneid has elmo crestato, a plumed helmet.^[2][8]
• Before 1327 – Cecco d'Ascoli's Acerba uses the word of a crested fish.^[14][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having a crest (crested, cristate): un picchio crestato.^[3][7][1]
2. Of a helmet: topped with a crest or plume.^[15][4][16]
3. (uncommon) Jagged or toothed like a crest: un bordo crestato.^[4][6][16]
4. (literary) Of a wave: edged with foam.^[7]
5. (heraldry) Of a dolphin, dragon or cock: having a crest of a different tincture.^[15][6]

Related words

• cresta
• Latin crista

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 123
6. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d e f Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 966
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1155
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli