fascia

Forms

fascia f (plural fasce)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fascia (“band, bandage”),^[2][3][4][1] derived from fascis (“bundle”), the source of fascio.^[2][3][5] The Latin verb for “to bind with bands”, which DELI calls late and DEI finds in Celsus, gave fasciare.^[2][6] The same word is French faisse, Occitan faisa, Catalan faixa, Sardinian fasca and Romanian fașă;^[3] Meyer-Lübke takes Spanish faja and Portuguese faixa from the Catalan word.^[7]

De Vaan derives the Latin noun from Proto-Italic *faski- (“bundle”), an Italo-Celtic word with Old Irish basc (“necklace”) and Welsh baich (“burden”), for which no Indo-European etymology is known.^[8] Devoto too found no Indo-European connections.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Bolognese Memoriali of 1279, with the sense “strip of cloth used to wrap or bind something; bandage”.^[10][3] DELI's first record is in Florentine texts of 1281–1297.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word for a medical bandage, for the bands wrapped round a newborn child, and in fascia da piede, a cloth wrapped round the foot inside the shoe; it also had the senses “river bank”, “covering”, “hindrance”, “halo” and “social group”.^[10] Dante calls the body quella fascia / che la morte dissolve, “that band which death undoes”.^[4][11]

Later senses followed: a flat decorative band in architecture (before 1465, Filarete), a long strip of territory (1600, Botero), the heraldic fess (1875) and the soldier's puttees (1918).^[2] Fascia lata, the sheath of the thigh muscles, is a scientific Latin term of the 19th century that passed unchanged into French and English.^[6] Sotto fascia, of printed matter sent in a paper band, is probably a calque on French sous bande.^[2] Recent uses group people or things into bands: fascia d'ascolto, fasce deboli.^[12][13]

Dictionaries usually separate sfasciare “to unbandage” from sfasciare “to smash”, but Marco Maggiore showed that both are one verb from fascia, which first meant “to remove the bands”, then “to strip a town of its walls”, and in the 15th century came to mean “to break up”.^[3] Austrian German borrowed the word as Fasche in the 14th century.^[14]

Timeline

• 1279 – The Bolognese Memoriali have fascia.^[10][3]
• 1281–1297 – Florentine texts use it for a strip of cloth.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses the plural for swaddling bands.^[2]
• 14th century – Austrian German Fasche is recorded.^[14]
• Before 1465 – Filarete uses it for a decorative band in architecture.^[2]
• 1600 – Botero uses it for a strip of territory.^[2]
• 1875 – The heraldic sense is recorded.^[2]
• 1918 – Panzini records the military puttees.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A band or strip of cloth or other material used to wrap, bind or decorate; a sash, such as the one worn by a mayor.^[4][15][13]
2. A bandage.^[4][13][16]
3. (chiefly plural) Swaddling bands;^[4][17][16] in fasce, in infancy, or (figurative) just beginning.^[4][17][16]
4. A paper band round newspapers or banknotes;^[4][17] sotto fascia, sent in such a band.^[4][17]
5. (military, historical) A puttee.^[17][16]
6. (architecture) A flat, slightly projecting band; one of the bands of an Ionic architrave.^[4][16]
7. A band joining or decorating the parts of a piece of furniture; the ribs of a violin.^[4]
8. (mechanics) A ring: fasce elastiche, piston rings.^[16]
9. A strip of land: fascia costiera.^[13][4]
10. (anatomy) A fascia, the connective sheath of a muscle.^[13][18]
11. (figurative) A band, bracket or group: fascia di reddito, fascia oraria.^[13][19][12]
12. (heraldry) A fess.^[2][1]

Word family

• fascetta
• fasciare
• fasciatura
• fasciatoio
• fasciame
• fascione
• sfasciare
• sfascio
• sottofascia
• controfascia

Related words

• fascio
• fasciola
• Latin fascia

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1602
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 178
10. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
18. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
19. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli