cuna

Forms

cuna f (plural cune)^[1] Old Italian forms are cuna, chuna and cunna.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cūna (“cradle”), in Latin usually the plural cūnae.^[3][4][5] DELI, DEI and Zingarelli call it a learned word.^[6][7][8] Wiktionary treats it as inherited.^[1] The Italian culla comes from a Vulgar Latin diminutive of the same word.^[1]

The northern dialects have kept the popular word: Meyer-Lübke lists Romagnol kona, Lombard küna and Piedmontese küna, and Spanish cuna belongs to the same Latin word.^[9][3][8] DEI notes that Spanish passed it on to Basque.^[8]

DELI, GRADIT and Zingarelli call the origin of the Latin word uncertain, and Devoto finds no clear relatives in other Indo-European languages.^{[6][10][7][5]} Nocentini, Wiktionary and de Vaan derive it from Proto-Italic *koinā, Proto-Indo-European *ḱoyneh₂, from the root Proto-Indo-European *ḱey- (“to lie”) of Ancient Greek κεῖμαι (keîmai, “to lie”).^[3][1][11] De Vaan notes that this comparison has been rejected because the root is not otherwise found in western Indo-European, but he does not find the objection strong.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Milanese poems of Bonvesin de la Riva, from the late 13th century, with the sense “cradle”.^[2] DELI's first record is Dante, before 1321.^[6][10]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word in phrases: a child di cuna was a newborn, and to draw someone from the cradle meant to raise them.^[2] Dante used cuna figuratively for the place where a child is raised (Mount Ida, chosen by Rhea as a safe cradle for her son), and in the Purgatorio for the body of a chariot where the passengers sit.^[2][10][7] Petrarch, Tasso, Metastasio, Leopardi and Pascoli kept it in poetry.^[12]

In 1767 Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti used it for a hollow or small depression in the ground.^[6] Its diminutive cunetta took the technical senses: a ditch dug in the moat of a fortress (1609), a drainage channel along a road (1770) and a dip in the road surface (1964).^[6] DEI notes that French borrowed it as cunette (1642, Oudin), and that Spanish cuneta came from French.^[8] Today cuna is literary or regional, and for the ditch it is much less common than cunetta.^[13][14]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – Bonvesin de la Riva uses cuna for a cradle.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses the word.^[6][10]
• 1609 – The diminutive cunetta is recorded for a ditch in a fortress moat.^[6]
• 1767 – Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti uses cuna for a hollow in the ground.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary or regional) A cradle.^{[10][13][15][14]}
2. (figurative) A birthplace, homeland, the place where something began or grew: la cuna della civiltà.^[10][15][7]
3. (uncommon) A cunetta, a drainage channel; a hollow in the ground.^{[10][13][14][16]}
4. (obsolete) The body of a carriage, where the passengers sit.^[7][16]

Word family

• cunetta
• incunarsi

Related words

• culla
• incunabolo
• Latin cūnae

Usage notes

Dalla cuna means “from birth, from earliest childhood”.^[7][16] GRADIT has a second cuna (1956), the name of the Kuna, a people of Central and South America who still use a pictographic script in magic, and of their Chibchan language.^[10][12] DEI also records cuna (1941) for the currency of the wartime Croatian state, from Croatian kuna “marten (pelt)”.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
5. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1190
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b 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 Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli