Etymologically
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famiglia

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Pronunciation

  • /faˈmiʎ.ʎa/[1]

Forms

famiglia f (plural famiglie, diminutive famigliòla or (literary) famigliuòla or (rare) famiglìna, augmentative famiglióna, pejorative famigliàccia, endearing-derogatory famigliùccia)[1] Old Italian also wrote familia, and northern texts have forms such as fameglia, fameia and famia.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin familia (“the slaves of a household; household”), from famulus (“servant”).[4][5][6][1] The cluster /lj/ became /ʎ/, as in other popular words.[7] DEI calls the word popular throughout the Romance area except France and the Iberian Peninsula.[8] There French famille, Occitan familha, Catalan familia and Spanish familia are learned forms, while Romanian femeie came to mean “woman”.[5][9]

Ancient antiquarians took the Latin word, with famulus, to be Oscan, and Nocentini notes that its relatives are found only among the Italic languages.[5] Wiktionary derives it from Proto-Italic *fameliā and further from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place”), with famulus as a back-formation from it.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Splanamento of the Cremonese poet Patecchio (13th century).[2] DELI's first dates are Guittone d'Arezzo (before 1294), for the family of parents and children, and Bono Giamboni (before 1292), for the retinue of a great man or the servants of a house.[4]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word covered everyone under the authority of the head of the house: relatives and servants together.[2] It also meant a lineage, and phrases such as padre di famiglia and di buona famiglia are already old.[2] In the old language famiglia could name a servant, and famiglio and famigliare a constable, a sense the collective noun had too.[10] DEI adds an armed band and a religious order.[8]

From the 18th century the word was used in the natural sciences for a group of genera with common characters (Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti, 1754) and in geometry for a class of curves (D'Alberti, 1798).[4] Modern Italian also uses it for a clan in the Mafia.[6][7] The word was borrowed into Maltese and Ottoman Turkish.[1][9]

Timeline

  • 13th century – Patecchio of Cremona uses the word.[2]
  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for a retinue or household servants.[4]
  • Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses it for parents and children.[4]
  • Before 1374 – Petrarch uses the diminutive famigliola.[4]
  • 1754 – Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti uses it for a group of plants or animals.[4]
  • 1798 – D'Alberti records famiglia di curve in geometry.[4]
  • 1961 – Familismo is borrowed from English familism.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. family: a group of people related by marriage or kinship, especially parents and their children: Domenica pranziamo in famiglia.[6][11][1]
  2. A lineage, house or dynasty: una famiglia di antica nobiltà.[6][7]
  3. (historical) The retinue of a great person, or the servants of a house.[6][7][1]
  4. A group of people joined by a common bond, such as a religious order: la famiglia francescana.[6][7]
  5. In Mafia slang, a clan under one boss.[6][7]
  6. (biology) A rank in classification, above the genus and below the order.[7][4]
  7. A group of similar things, such as words of one root or, in mathematics, of curves or sets.[7][4]

Word family

  • famigliola
  • famiglio
  • familiare
  • familiarità
  • familiarizzare
  • familismo
  • sottofamiglia
  • superfamiglia

Usage notes

Avere famiglia or tenere famiglia means to be married with children to support, and metter su famiglia to start a family.[12][11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1591
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 420
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli