crivello

Forms

crivello m (plural crivelli)^[1] Old Italian forms include crevello, Old Italian criello, Old Italian criviello and Old Italian crivel.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin cribellum (“small sieve”), a diminutive of Latin crībrum (“sieve”).^[3][4][5][1] The verb crivellare continues the Late Latin derivative cribellāre.^[3][6] Nocentini compares Occitan cruvel and Catalan crivell.^[4] Körting notes that Old Provençal and Old Catalan kept only the verb, as in Old Occitan crivellar.^[7] Sabatini–Coletti calls it the popular word beside the learned cribro.^[8]

The Latin crībrum comes from Proto-Italic *kreiþro-, from Proto-Indo-European *krei-dʰro- (“sieve”), built on the root of cernō (“to sift, separate”) with an instrument suffix.^[9][1][10] The same formation gave Old Irish críathar (“sieve”) and Old English hrīdder.^[9]

The Latin /b/ between vowels became /v/ in Italian.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Savona document of 1178–1182;^[2][3] DELI dates the word to the end of the 12th century, in the declaration of Paxia.^[2][3] It names a sieve: in Old Italian a flat frame, usually round, with a perforated skin stretched over it, used to separate fine grains from coarse ones.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The TLIO also records the word for a flat round leather instrument like a tambourine.^[2] A translation of Aesop's fables tells of a man who tanned an animal's hide and made of it un crivello pertugiato da conciare calcina, “a pierced sieve for working lime”.^[11][12]

The verb crivellare “to sift” is recorded from the early 14th century.^[3] The sense “to riddle with holes”, the source of the modern figurative use, follows in 1350–1375.^[3] In organ building the crivello is a thin board pierced with holes that holds the feet of the pipes upright.^[12][5][13] Mathematics has the crivello di Eratostene, the sieve of Eratosthenes for finding primes.^[14][15] Industry uses vibrating, rotary and hydraulic sieves for sorting loose materials.^[16]

Timeline

• 1178–1182 – Crivello appears in a document from Savona.^[2]
• Early 14th century – Crivellare “to sift” is recorded in Bencivenni.^[3]
• 1350–1375 – Crivellare means “to riddle with holes” in a translation of Guido delle Colonne.^[3]
• 14th–15th century – Cennino Cennini uses crivellatura, what is left in the sieve.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A coarse sieve or riddle: a frame with a perforated plate or wire mesh for sorting grain, sand, ore and other loose material by size: Passarono la ghiaia al crivello.^{[5][8][16][13]}
2. (music) In an organ, a pierced board that holds the pipes upright.^[5][13]
3. (mathematics) In crivello di Eratostene, the sieve of Eratosthenes, a method for finding the prime numbers below a given number.^[14][15][13]

Word family

• crivellare
• crivellatura
• crivellone

Related words

• cribro
• vaglio
• Latin crībrum

Usage notes

Passare al crivello means to examine something closely, and ridurre come un crivello to riddle with shots or holes.^[16][13] DEI lists a separate dialect crivello “kestrel”, Piedmontese crivèl and Sicilian crivèddu, named after the sieve from the movement of its wings.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d e Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
17. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1167