fascio

Forms

fascio m (plural fasci)^[1] Old texts also have Old Italian fasso, Old Italian fassio and Old Italian faxio.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fascis (“bundle, faggot”), which passed into another declension;^{[3][1][4][5][6]} Devoto–Oli and Sabatini–Coletti set up Vulgar Latin *fascium for this step.^{[3][1][4][5][6]} The form Medieval Latin fascium is recorded in a Medieval Latin document from Parenzo (Poreč) in 1017.^[7]

The word is also French faix, Occitan fais, Catalan feix, Spanish haz and Portuguese feixe, but it did not survive in Romanian.^[3][8][9] Logudorese has a feminine fasche.^[8][9] Spanish fajo is a loan from Italian.^[8][9]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *faski- (“bundle”) and sees an Italo-Celtic word, shared with Old Irish basc (“necklace”) and Welsh beich (“burden”), with no Indo-European etymology.^[10] Nocentini compares the Hesychian gloss Ancient Greek βάσκιοι (báskioi, “bundles of dry wood”), but the Greek source is unknown and the ⟨f⟩ of Latin against the ⟨b⟩ of Greek is unexplained; de Vaan thinks the Greek words probably unrelated.^[3][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Sienese document of 1221, and Nocentini also dates the word 1221.^[2][3] DELI's first Italian record is from about 1235, in C. Ghiberti, with the sense “a number of things gathered and often tied together”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word for any group of things or people, for a great mass of things, and figuratively for a load of toil or a moral weight; the phrases fare d’ogni erba fascio “to lump everything together” and andare in fascio “to go to ruin” go back to this period.^[2] Petrarch writes Io son sì stanco sotto ’l fascio antico / de le mie colpe (“I am so weary under the old burden of my sins”).^[11][12] From the early 14th century the plural fasci named the Roman fasces, and by extension the power of office.^[7][2]

Scientific senses came in the 19th century: a coordinated set of elements (1869, Tommaseo–Bellini) and, in anatomy, a bundle of fibres (1884–1886, D'Annunzio).^[7]

About 1872 fascio came to mean a union of workers: the Italian sections of the International Workingmen's Association were called fasci operai.^[7] The Sicilian fasci were dissolved by Francesco Crispi.^[13] In December 1914 the Fasci d’azione rivoluzionaria were founded in Milan to campaign for entering the war, and these gave the word fascista in January 1915, a word that, DELI notes, may not have been coined by Mussolini;^[7] fascismo seems to have spread only later.^[7] DELI therefore rejects the common view that the words come from the Fasci di combattimento of 1919 or from the fascio littorio, later the party's symbol.^[7] Nocentini dates fascista from 1897.^[3] French borrowed fascio for the fascist party in 1918, and English has Fasci from 1921.^[14] Since the late 20th century fascio is also slang for a fascist.^[11][15]

Timeline

• 1017 – Medieval Latin fascium is recorded at Parenzo.^[7]
• 1221 – A Sienese document has the Italian word.^[2][3]
• About 1235 – C. Ghiberti uses fascio.^[7]
• Early 14th century – The Italian translation of Livy uses fasci for the Roman fasces.^[7]
• 1869 – Tommaseo–Bellini records the scientific sense “coordinated set of elements”.^[7]
• About 1872 – Fascio is used for an association of workers.^[7][14]
• 1884–1886 – D'Annunzio uses the anatomical sense “bundle of fibres”.^[7]
• December 1914 – The Fasci d’azione rivoluzionaria are founded in Milan.^[7]
• 1915 – Fascista is recorded.^[7]
• 1918 – French borrows fascio for the fascist party.^[14]
• 1919 – Mussolini uses fascismo.^[7][3]
• 1921 – English Fasci is first recorded.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bundle of things, especially long thin ones, gathered or tied so that they can be carried: Portava a casa un fascio di sarmenti.^{[11][4][16][1]}
2. By extension, a loose heap of similar things, such as papers or letters.^[11][4][5]
3. (figurative, literary) A burden, a load.^[11][17][12]
4. (figurative) A jumble of words, feelings and the like.^[11][17]
5. (physics) A beam of radiation or particles from one source.^{[11][4][16][1]}
6. (anatomy) A group of fibres with the same direction and function, a fasciculus.^[11][16][1]
7. (botany) A vascular bundle, the strand of tissue that carries water and nutrients in a plant.^[11][4][5]
8. (mathematics) A pencil of lines or planes: all those through one point or line, or parallel to one another.^[4][5][16]
9. (history) The fasces, the bundle of rods with an axe carried before Roman magistrates; in full fascio littorio.^{[11][4][5][1]}
10. (history) A political or trade-union association of workers or peasants, especially a revolutionary one, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[11][5][14]
11. (history) The National Fascist Party, or one of its local branches or premises.^[11][14]
12. (slang) A fascist.^[11][5][1]
13. (historical) An old Milanese unit of weight, equal to 76.25 kg.^[11]

Word family

• fascismo
• fascista
• fascetto
• fastello
• fascione
• affasciare
• sfasciare
• catafascio
• rifascio

Related words

• fascia
• fasciare
• fascina
• Latin fascis

Usage notes

The phrase fare d’ogni erba un fascio means to lump different things or people together.^[17][16][2] In 19th-century military use a fascio was three rifles stacked together by their bayonets.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1602
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 426
14. ^ a b c d e f Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
16. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli