dolco

Forms

dolco (feminine dolca, masculine plural dolchi, feminine plural dolche)^[1] Dialect forms include northern Tuscan dorco and Emilian doic.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Italian dolcare (“to sweeten”), a deverbal adjective from that disused verb.^[3][1][4] The verb is from Late Latin dulcō (“to make sweet”), from Latin dulcis (“sweet”).^[3][5][1] DEI finds the Late Latin verb in the 6th-century Latin Dioscorides and in Italian documents up to the 10th century.^[2] Devoto preferred Vulgar Latin *dulcus taken from the participle dulcātus.^[6]

The verb survives in Comasco dulcà (“to bend iron or wood”) and in Tuscan addolcare and raddolcare, to soothe pain.^[2]

The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *dulkwi- (“sweet”), and is usually compared with Ancient Greek γλυκύς (glukús, “sweet”), from a tentative Proto-Indo-European *dl̥kús.^[7][8][1] The vowel changes are hard to explain, and Wiktionary suggests both words were borrowed from an unknown source.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is Fazio degli Uberti's Dittamondo (around 1345–67): “Lucea il sole ed era il tempo dolco / come si vede ne la primavera”, the sun shone and the weather was mild as in spring.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

The word belongs to Tuscany and to the weather: mild days in the cold season, when the sirocco raises the temperature.^[5][11][12] Antonio Pucci's Centiloquio has “A' dì otto d'april, nel tempo dolco”, on the eighth of April in the mild weather.^[10] Fazio also has Mars “benigno e dolco”, favourable to him, a figurative sense the TLIO records.^[12][9]

The figurative senses “soft” and “propitious” are archaic, and the weather sense lives on as a regional word, often as a noun in fa dolco and mettersi a dolco.^[5][11][13]

Timeline

• 1345–1367 – Fazio degli Uberti uses dolco of the weather.^[9]
• Before 1367 – Zingarelli's date for the word.^[4]
• Before 1388 – GRADIT's date for the word.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (Tuscany) mild, of the weather, when it turns warm in the cold season with the sirocco.^{[5][11][12][14]}
2. (figurative, archaic) soft, pliant.^[5][11][4]
3. (figurative, archaic) propitious, favourable.^[5][11][12]

Noun

1. (Tuscany) Mild weather: essere a dolco, mettersi a dolco, to be or turn mild.^[5][11][15]

Word family

• addolcare

Related words

• dolce
• Latin dulcis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1375
3. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 4, 912
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli