erboso

Forms

erboso (feminine erbosa, masculine plural erbosi, feminine plural erbose)^[1] Old Italian also wrote herboso, and northern texts have herboxa and southern herbusu.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin herbōsus (“grassy, full of herbs”).^{[3][4][5][6][7][1]} The Latin adjective is formed from herba (“grass, vegetation”) with the suffix -ōsus, and Italian erba is the same noun.^[8][1][4]

The same Latin word gave Romanian ierbos, French herbeux, Old Occitan erbos, Catalan erbos, Spanish herboso and Portuguese hervoso.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bono Giamboni's Vizi e Virtudi, a Florentine text from before 1292, with the sense “covered with grass, rich in meadows”.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian extended the sense to “mixed with grass, full of grass”, and Tommaseo also notes it of crops overrun with weeds.^[2][12] Boccaccio's Filocolo builds two altars of grassy earth (erbosa terra), and Ariosto has Angelica asleep among the brambles “on the grassy ground”.^[12][13]

The meaning has stayed the same since; the common phrase tappeto erboso is a dense lawn or turf.^[3][7]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it in the Vizi e Virtudi.^[2][11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. grassy: covered with thick grass, rich in meadows: Ci sedemmo su un pendio erboso.^{[3][5][6][14][15]}

Related words

• erba
• erbaceo
• Latin herbōsus

Usage notes

Tappeto erboso is a thick lawn or turf.^[3][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana