dattero

Forms

dattero m (plural datteri)^[1] Old Italian forms include dattilo, dattalo, dattolo, dattaro and, with a prefix, andattalo.^[2][1][3] The word is Venetian dàtolo and Sicilian dàttulu.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dactylus (“date”), from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos, “finger; date”).^[5][6][7][1] The Greek name of the fruit was probably a Semitic word, such as Arabic دَقَل (daqal, “a kind of date palm”), reshaped by folk etymology to look like the word for “finger”.^[5][6][1] The LEI names Aramaic and Arabic words as the source, taken into Greek in the 4th century BC.^[8] DEI and the Treccani also allow that the shape of the fruit suggested the name.^[4][9]

The LEI sorts the Italian forms as follows: dattolo continues the Latin variant dactulus, dattalo has the middle vowel assimilated to the stressed one, dattaro changes /l/ to /r/, and the standard form took the ending of other words in /-ero/.^[8] Devoto and DEI see the forms with /r/ as spread from Genoa, the port through which the fruit arrived;^[10][4] Medieval Latin datarus is recorded at Modena in the 14th century.^[10][4] The metrical term dattilo is the learned doublet.^[1][11]

The word is Old Occitan datil, Catalan dàtil, Spanish dátil and Portuguese dátil.^[6][12] Nocentini, DEI and Meyer-Lübke take French datte from Italian.^[6][4][12] The LEI instead lists Old French date from about 1180, in Chrétien de Troyes, among the direct continuations of the Latin word.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first Italian record is dattili in a sonnet of Folgore da San Gimignano, in the second half of the 13th century: “oranges and citrons, dates and limes”.^[5][13][6] The TLIO's first example is in the Milanese verse of Bonvesin de la Riva, late in the 13th century.^[2] The form dattero is first found in 1310, in Zucchero Bencivenni, and in Dante.^[5] Medieval Latin dataro is recorded at the castle of Bonifacio as early as 1238.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Besides the fruit, Old Italian used the word for the palm itself, from the Tavola Ritonda in the first half of the 14th century, and for the fibre taken from its leaves.^[8][2][3] Old proverbial phrases opposed the date to the cheaper fig: Dante has riprendere dattero per fico, to get back worse than one gave, and later texts have rendere dattero per fico, while Pulci's spacciare per un dattero una succiola meant passing off one thing for another.^[8][2][14]

The dattero di mare, a bivalve mollusc that bores into limestone rocks, is named for its shape and brown colour;^[4][5][3] DEI dates it from the 16th century, and Prati's first author is Bembo.^[4][5][3] Latin “dactylus” already had this sense in Pliny.^[8][4]

Timeline

• 1238 – Medieval Latin dataro is recorded at Bonifacio.^[5]
• Second half of the 13th century – Folgore da San Gimignano uses dattili.^[5][6]
• Before 1313 – Dante uses riprendere dattero per fico.^[8]
• 1310 – The form dattero is recorded in Zucchero Bencivenni.^[5]
• 1500s – Dattero di mare is recorded for the mollusc.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A date: the sweet, fleshy fruit of the date palm, with a single hard seed: un vassoio di datteri secchi.^{[7][15][9][1]}
2. (botany) The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera).^[7][15][9]
3. (zoology) Short for dattero di mare: the date mussel, an edible bivalve that bores into limestone rocks.^[7][15][9]

Word family

• dattereto
• palma da datteri
• dattero di mare

Related words

• dattilo
• Latin dactylus
• French datte

Usage notes

Palma da datteri and dattero di mare are the usual fixed phrases.^[7] The old form dattilo survives only as a literary variant.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 c d Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 364
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1215
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d e f g Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 19, 7–16
9. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 130
11. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 4
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ 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
16. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli