cuoiaio

Forms

cuoiaio m (plural cuoiai, feminine cuoiaia)^[1] Old Italian forms include coiaio, coiaro, choiaio and coriario.^[2] Coiaio is the Tuscan form still given beside cuoiaio.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin coriārius (“tanner”), the Latin derivative of corium (“leather, hide”).^[5][6][3][1] Other dictionaries treat it as formed within Italian, from Italian cuoio + -aio, and Wiktionary notes that the ⟨u⟩ of the diphthong was later carried over from the noun.^[7][4][1] The Tuscan treatment of the suffix -ārius as -aio is the regular one.^[8]

In Latin coriārius was first an adjective meaning “of tanning”, then a noun for a leather worker.^[9] Nocentini compares corium with Sanskrit and Old Church Slavonic words for skin and bark, and traces it to Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Sienese document of 1277–1282, with the sense of a man who sells or tans leather.^[2] DELI's first record of coiaio is from 1303–1305, and the form cuoiaio appears in the letters of Saint Catherine of Siena, before 1380.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The old texts use the word for a trade: Saint Catherine addresses a letter to Giovanni Perotti, “cuoiaio da Lucca”, and the Datini archive in 1373 pays a coiaio for dressing and blackening a calfskin for a large book cover.^[11] In the 16th century Soderini noted that tanners used the leaves of myrtle and mastic to tan hides, and the plant name sommacco dei cuoiai recalls the same work.^[11][6] Modern dictionaries define the word as a tanner or a dealer in leather.^[6][7][12]

Timeline

• 1277–1282 – A Sienese document records the word.^[2]
• 1303–1305 – Coiaio is recorded.^[5]
• Before 1313 – Nocentini and GRADIT date cuoiaio.^[10][6]
• Before 1380 – Saint Catherine of Siena uses the form cuoiaio.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tanner or a seller of leather; feminine cuoiaia: la bottega del cuoiaio era vicino al fiume.^{[6][7][12][1]}

Related words

• cuoio
• cuoiame
• conciatore
• Latin corium

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 127
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3
12. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse