faina

Forms

faina f (plural faine)^[1] Old Italian has the plural foine beside faine.^[2] The forms foina and foino are still recorded, and northern dialects have forms with -o-, such as Milanese foin and Piedmontese fon.^[1][3][4]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old French faïne, recorded in the 12th century, from Vulgar Latin *fagīna, literally “(marten) of the beech”, from Latin fāgus (“beech”).^{[5][6][7][8][9]} The animal was named after the trees it lives in.^[5][10] Nocentini, Wiktionary and Gabrielli take the Italian word straight from the Vulgar Latin one.^[11][1][12]

The Vulgar Latin word is short for a phrase “beech weasel”, with mustēla (“weasel”); it is the feminine of an adjective fāginus (“of beech”).^[11][1] German has the same image in German Buchmarder, and Albertus Magnus called the animal Medieval Latin martarus fagorum, the marten of the beeches.^[9][11]

The Old French word survives as French fouine, and the same word is Occitan faina, dialectal Spanish fuina and Portuguese fuinha.^[11][4] Diez had derived it from a German word for a kind of marten, but Littré preferred the Latin source.^[13][13] The Latin word for beech goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵos (“beech”), the source of beech and Ancient Greek φηγός (phēgós, “oak”).^[14][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is Restoro d'Arezzo's Composizione del mondo of 1282, in Arezzo, naming the small carnivore.^[2][8] DELI gives the 14th-century commentary on Dante called the Ottimo.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word for the animal's fur as well as the animal.^[2] The marten became proverbial for its cunning in raiding henhouses, and the word was applied to people: someone with a sharp face and small eyes, or a sly, spiteful person.^[6][15][16]

Italian faina was borrowed into Sardinian.^[1] The DEI notes that Linnaeus took the word into the animal's scientific name; today the stone marten is Martes foina.^[9][15]

Timeline

• 12th century – Old French faïne is recorded.^[5][3]
• 1282 – First Italian record, in Restoro d'Arezzo.^[2][8]
• 14th century – The Ottimo commentary on Dante uses the word.^[5]
• 1591 – New Latin fagina is first recorded.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) The stone marten or beech marten (Martes foina), a small carnivore with a brownish coat and a white patch on the throat and chest, which hunts small mammals and birds.^[6][15][8]
2. The fur of this animal.^[8][12]
3. (figurative) A person with a pointed face, or a sly, spiteful or untrustworthy person: furbo come una faina.^[6][15][7]

Word family

• fainesco

Related words

• faggio
• Latin fagus
• French fouine

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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b c d e 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1583
10. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 417
11. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ a b Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana