cucire

Forms

cucire (first-person singular present cùcio, first-person singular past historic cucìi, past participle cucìto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include cuscire, cusire, cosire and coxire.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cosīre, the spoken Latin verb that took the place of classical Latin cōnsuere (“to sew together”).^[4][5][6][1] Nocentini, Devoto and Treccani's Vocabolario derive it from a Late Latin *cosĕre, the classical verb without its ⟨n⟩, which then moved into the conjugation in ⟨-īre⟩.^[5][7][8] The classical verb is a compound of con- (“together”) and suō (“to sew”), the verb behind sutura too.^[4][5][9]

Devoto holds that the word reached Tuscany from northern Italy, and that the Tuscan ⟨c⟩ is a correction of the northern ⟨s⟩.^[7] DELI finds ⟨cusire⟩ first in the Medieval Latin of Venice.^[4]

The verb is found all over the Romance area: French coudre, Occitan cozer, Catalan cosir, Spanish coser, Portuguese coser, Sardinian cosire and Romanian coase.^[5][10] According to Nocentini the French and Romanian verbs continue the type in ⟨-ĕre⟩, all the others the type in ⟨-īre⟩.^[5]

The Latin verb for sewing goes back to Proto-Indo-European *siuH- (“to sew”), with cognates such as Lithuanian siūti, Old High German siuwen and English sew.^[9][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Libro of Uguccione da Lodi, written in the dialect of Cremona at the beginning of the 13th century, with the sense of joining pieces of cloth or leather with needle and thread.^[2][5] DELI gives Boccaccio (1352) as the first writer of the Tuscan form cucire.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the verb for closing something up by sewing, and figuratively for binding two people in friendship or love; the infinitive could also be a noun meaning “seam”.^[2] Dante's envious souls in Purgatorio have their eyelids pierced by an iron wire that “sews them up” (E cuce sì, come a sparvier selvaggio, “and sews them, as is done to a wild sparrowhawk”).^[11] The figurative sense of putting things together in the mind appears in A. F. Doni in 1565.^[4]

The family grew early: cucitura “seam” is recorded in 1233–1243, cucitore “sewer” before 1342 in Domenico Cavalca, cucito as an adjective in Boccaccio and as a noun, the work to be sewn, in Leon Battista Alberti in 1437–1438.^[4] Cucitrice was first a woman who sews (Oudin, 1663) and later a machine for sewing or binding books.^[4] Cucirino, sewing thread, came into Italian from the northern dialects, compare Venetian cusarìn.^[4][3]

Tommaseo noted that in use the verb makes cuce and cucia, not cucisca; the GDLI records cucisco as rare.^[11][12]

Timeline

• Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi uses the verb in the dialect of Cremona.^[2]
• 1233–1243 – Cucitura “seam” is recorded.^[4]
• Before 1342 – Cucitore appears in Domenico Cavalca.^[4]
• 1352 – Boccaccio uses cucire.^[4][6]
• 1565 – A. F. Doni uses the figurative sense “put together”.^[4]
• 1663 – Cucitrice “seamstress” is recorded in Oudin.^[4]
• 1918 – Cucirino appears in Panzini's dictionary.^[4]
• 1941 – The Accademia's dictionary records cucitrice as a binding machine.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sew: to join pieces of cloth, leather or similar with needle and thread or a similar tool; also used without an object: Mia nonna cuciva tutte le sere.^[6][13][14]
2. To make a garment by sewing: Si è cucita da sola l'abito della festa.^[6][13][15]
3. (medicine) To suture the edges of a wound.^[6][14][15]
4. (bookbinding) To sew together the sections of a book.^[14][8]
5. (figurative) To link or put together, often hastily: cucire insieme vecchi appunti.^[6][13][14]
6. cucire la bocca a qualcuno: to force someone to keep quiet;^[16][14][17] cucirsi la bocca: to resolve to say nothing.^[16][14][17]

Word family

• cucito
• cucitura
• cucitore
• cucitrice
• cucirino
• cucita
• scucire
• scucitura
• ricucire

Related words

• sutura
• Latin cōnsuō
• French coudre

Usage notes

Macchina da cucire or macchina per cucire is the sewing machine.^[6][16]

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 355
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
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. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli