cuoio

Forms

cuoio m (plural cuoi m or (archaic except in fixed expressions) cuoia f)^[1] Old Italian forms include coio, corio, cuoro and quoio.^[2] The popular Tuscan form is coio.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cŏrium (“skin, hide”).^[5][6][7][1] The same word is French cuir, Occitan coir, Catalan cuir, Spanish cuero and Portuguese couro.^[6][8]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *korjo-.^[9][1] De Vaan takes it as a derivative of a noun meaning “that which is torn off, peeled off”, hence “bark” and “skin”, from the PIE root Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”), and compares words for “skin” in Sanskrit and Avestan and for “bark” in Slavic.^[9][6][10] The same root is behind carne.^[6][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Roman Storie de Troia e de Roma (1252–1258).^[2] DELI dates coio to before 1306, in Jacopone, and cuoio to the early 14th century, in the Tuscan version of Marco Polo, which mentions leather flasks for milk; in both the sense is tanned animal hide.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the word for the skin of a live or freshly flayed animal, for tanned leather, for parchment and for human skin, and by extension for the peel of fruit and the bark of trees.^[2][7] Dante's “old and new parchments” (le vecchie e le nuove cuoia) are the Old and New Testaments.^[12][3] The sense “human skin” is recorded in the 13th century, and phrases built on it include non capere nel cuoio, “to be beside oneself”, and trenta cuoia, said of someone hard to kill.^[5][2][4]

In modern Italian the word means leather, with many trade names: cuoio bulgaro or cuoio di Russia, tanned with willow and birch bark, and cuoio sintetico.^[12][13] Cuoio capelluto is the scalp, tirare le cuoia means “to die”, and teste di cuoio, from their leather helmets, are police special forces.^[3][4][13] In mineralogy cuoio di monte is a kind of asbestos.^[4]

Timeline

• 1252–1258 – The word appears in the Roman Storie de Troia e de Roma.^[2]
• 13th century – The sense “human skin” is recorded in a translation of Petrus Hispanus.^[5]
• 1303–1305 – Coiaio, a tanner or leather seller, is recorded.^[5]
• Before 1306 – Jacopone uses coio.^[5]
• Early 14th century – Cuoio appears in the Tuscan Marco Polo.^[5]
• Before 1388 – Coiame, leather goods, is recorded in A. Pucci.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. leather, animal hide made durable by tanning: un portafoglio di cuoio.^[7][3][4][1]
2. (anatomy) cuoio capelluto: the scalp.^[3][12][4]
3. (humorous; plural le cuoia) Human skin;^[7][3][12] tirare le cuoia, to die.^[7][3][12]
4. (archaic; plural le cuoia) parchment used for writing.^[7][3][14]
5. (archaic) Bark of a tree; peel of a fruit.^[7][3][14]

Word family

• cuoiaio
• cuoiame
• cuoieria
• semicuoio

Related words

• scuoiare
• corazza
• Latin corium
• French cuir

Usage notes

The plural is cuoi for leather and the scalp, but the old feminine le cuoia, which continues the Latin neuter plural coria, survives for human skin and in phrases such as tirare le cuoia and avere le cuoia dure, “to be tough”.^{[5][14][3][12]}

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 d e f g h i j Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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)
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
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 c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse