doga

Forms

doga f (plural doghe)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian dogha and Old Italian dove.^[2]

Etymology

It probably continues inherited from Late Latin doga (“a vessel, container”) (3rd century, Vopiscus), but the origin is uncertain.^[3][4][5][6] Medieval Latin Doga in Medieval Latin is recorded at Venice in 1271.^[3][5] The word is panromance: Romanian doagă, Sardinian doa, French douve, Occitan doga and Catalan doga, and it was borrowed as German Daube.^[7][6][5]

Nocentini, Treccani and Wiktionary derive the Latin word from Ancient Greek δοχή (dokhḗ, “receptacle”), from δέχομαι (dékhomai, “to receive”), and DEI adds that an Etruscan intermediary would explain the vowel and the /g/.^[7][8][1][5] DEI also supposes a crossing with Ancient Greek δοκός (dokós, “beam”), Pliny's Latin docus, for the sense “stave”, and Devoto agrees.^[5][9] Meyer-Lübke rejected the Greek source on grounds of both form and meaning and thought a Gaulish origin possible for the “stave” sense; he also notes the sense “ditch, embankment” of French and Occitan.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Medieval Latin doga is recorded at Venice in 1271.^[3] The first Italian record is a Florentine document of 1286–1290, with the sense “barrel stave”, one of the curved wooden boards that form a cask.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante uses doga in Purgatorio XII for a time when “the ledger and the stave were safe” (ch'era sicuro 'l quaderno e la doga); Buti explained it as a fraud in which a stave of the official measure was shaved so that it held less.^[10] Dante also has dogare “to gird”, and in Giovanni Villani the word means a stripe or band on clothing.^[11][5] Tuscan proverbs used it for the cask itself: d'ottobre il vin nelle doghe “in October the wine in the casks”.^[5][8]

Machiavelli used the restacking of staves as an image: a cask is easily rebuilt if its staves were marked beforehand.^[12] In modern furniture the word is used for the slats that hold a mattress in beds without springs, and for wooden strips for floors and walls.^[4][13] In heraldry it is a vertical stripe of a shield.^[4][14] Derivatives include dogaia “drainage channel”, from Late Latin doga “ditch”, and sdogare (1838).^[7]

Timeline

• 1271 – Medieval Latin doga is recorded at Venice.^[3]
• 1286 – A Florentine document uses Italian doga.^[2]
• 1664 – Dogame “staves” is recorded at Siena.^[5]
• 1838 – Sdogare “to remove the staves” is recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A stave: one of the curved wooden boards that form the body of a cask, vat or barrel: una doga di quercia.^[4][13][14]
2. A slat supporting the mattress in a bed without springs: letto a doghe.^[4][13][14]
3. A wooden strip for flooring or wall cladding.^[13][15]
4. (obsolete) A stripe or band used as an ornament, especially on clothes.^[4][13][14]
5. (heraldry) A vertical stripe of a shield; one of the coloured stripes of a signal flag.^[4][14][13]

Word family

• dogaia
• dogare
• sdogare
• dogame
• addogato
• doghettato

Related words

• botte
• French douve
• German Daube

Usage notes

The stressed vowel is either closed or open: /ˈdo.ɡa/ or /ˈdɔ.ɡa/.^[16][1] DEI lists a Tuscan doga “cask” of the 19th century separately.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ 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. 1372
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, 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. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 386
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 d e f 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli