doglia

Forms

doglia f (plural doglie)^[1] Old Italian texts spell it in many ways, among them doglia, dogla, dolglia, dollia, doia, doja and doya; the forms in -oi- and -oj- are northern.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin dolia, the plural of Late Latin dolium (“pain”), which was taken as a feminine singular.^[3][4][5] dolium was formed from Latin doleō (“to feel pain, to hurt”).^[3][4][6] Devoto–Oli and Wiktionary give the starting point as Vulgar Latin *dolia, and Wiktionary relates it to dolor (“pain”).^[7][1]

DEI and the GDLI note that dolium “pain” is found in inscriptions and take it to have been drawn from the compound cordolium (“heartache”), the source of cordoglio.^[8][9][10] Related forms are Sicilian dogghia and Friulian dulie.^[1]

Latin doleō goes back to Proto-Italic *doleō (“to hurt”) and Proto-Indo-European *delh₁- (“to cut”), through the sense “to divide”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the poems of Giacomo da Lentini (c. 1230–1250, in a Tuscan copy), in the sense of the suffering of love: Così m’arde una doglia, / com’om che ten lo foco / a lo suo seno ascuso (“a pain burns me so, like a man who keeps fire hidden in his breast”).^[2][9] DELI dates the word to before 1249, in Pier della Vigna, with the sense “pain, suffering”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian doglia meant pain of the body and of the mind alike, and by extension torment; it was also a term of abuse, and it named the grief of love.^[2] Dante and Petrarch used it often: in Purgatory a soul says it has lain a questa doglia / cinquecento anni e più (“in this pain for five hundred years and more”).^[11][9]

The plural doglie for the pains of childbirth is recorded from before 1431, in Andrea da Barberino.^[3] Tommaseo also lists doglie fredde, weak labour pains that do not bring the birth on, and Tuscan proverbs use the plural for the troubles of life (chi ha figlioli ha doglie).^[11][10] In the sense of pain the word is now literary, and dolore is the everyday word.^[7][10]

Other senses have faded: “mourning” (as in abito di doglia, mourning dress) is obsolete, and the veterinary doglia is a lameness, as in Verga.^[12][13] In Calabria dogghia means colic and serves as a curse.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1230–1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses doglia of the pain of love.^[2]
• Before 1249 – Pier della Vigna uses the word for pain and suffering.^[3]
• 13th century – Doglienza is borrowed from Occitan.^[4]
• 14th century – The diminutive doglierella and the adjective doglioso appear.^[8]
• Before 1431 – Andrea da Barberino uses the plural for the pains of childbirth.^[3]
• 15th century – Doglianza is borrowed from Old French.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) pain, physical or mental suffering: Portava nel cuore una doglia che nessuno vedeva.^{[5][7][10][1]}
2. (in the plural) labour pains, the pains caused by the contractions of the uterus before and during birth: Le doglie la presero all’alba.^[5][7][6][1]
3. (obsolete) Mourning.^[5][13][12]
4. (veterinary) In doglia vecchia or doglia morta: a chronic, intermittent lameness.^[7][10][5]

Word family

• doglioso
• doglianza
• doglienza
• doglierella

Related words

• dolere
• dolore
• cordoglio
• Latin doleō

Usage notes

Doglia is also the first, second and third person singular of the present subjunctive of dolere (che mi doglia).^[1] Andare or camminare sopra doglia is to walk in pain, as in Manzoni.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 e f 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1372
9. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 4, 900
10. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli