fava

Forms

fava f (plural fave)^[1] An old spelling is Old Italian faba.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin faba (“broad bean”).^[4][5][6][1] The word is pan-Romance: French fève, Occitan fava, Catalan fava, Spanish haba, Portuguese fava, Sardinian fae and Aromanian fauă.^[5][7][8] DÉRom finds cognates in every branch of Romance and reconstructs a Proto-Romance noun from them.^[9]

The Latin word is recorded throughout antiquity, from Plautus on.^[9][10] It goes back to Proto-Italic *fabā, and Faliscan had haba.^[1][10] It is related to Proto-Slavic *bobъ, Old Prussian babo and Proto-Germanic *baunō, the source of Old High German bōna and Old English bēan.^[10][1][5] Wiktionary gives a PIE root Proto-Indo-European *bʰabʰ-, and Devoto calls it a north-western Indo-European word of agriculture.^[1][11] De Vaan finds no PIE form that can be reconstructed: the Italic, Slavic and Germanic words are probably independent borrowings from a European substrate word for the bean.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur of the last quarter of the 12th century.^[2] DELI dates the word to 1221, from an inventory published among Tuscan documents, for the bean plant and its edible seed.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

As a small and cheap thing, the bean served in Old Italian as a measure of worthlessness: non valere una fava, to be worth nothing.^[2][12] A 2009 supplement to the GDLI records the same sense in recent informal Italian, in negative phrases meaning “nothing at all”.^[3] Beans were also used for counting and in public votes, a white bean for one side and a black one for the other, and mettere alle fave meant “to put to the vote”.^[2][6][13] The sources disagree on which colour meant yes: the TLIO and Gabrielli make the white bean favourable, Zingarelli the black.^[2][14][12]

The proverb prendere due piccioni con una fava, to get two advantages at once, is still in common use.^[12][13] Fave dei morti are small almond biscuits eaten for the feast of the dead.^[15][13] In vulgar use fava means the glans and the penis, and in Tuscany it is also an insult for a very stupid person.^[6][15][1]

English uses the word in fava bean, recorded in Webster's dictionary.^[16]

Timeline

• Last quarter of the 12th century – the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur.^[2]
• 1221 – fava in a Tuscan inventory.^[4][6]
• 1385 – first record of favata, a dish of beans.^[5]
• Before 1449 – favagello, a plant named for its bean-like leaves, is recorded in Burchiello.^[4]
• 1899 – favismo, the haemolytic illness caused by beans, is recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The broad bean or fava bean, the flat green or brown edible seed of the plant, eaten fresh or dried: una zuppa di fave e cicoria.^{[6][15][17][1]}
2. (botany) The plant itself (Vicia faba), an annual legume with white or violet flowers and seeds in pods.^[6][15][13]
3. (cooking) fave dei morti or fave dolci: small crunchy biscuits of flour, sugar, ground almonds and egg white made for the Day of the Dead.^[15][13][12]
4. (historical) A small white or black ball used in voting; by extension, the vote itself: mettere alle fave, to put to the vote.^[6][15][13]
5. (colloquial) Nothing, a thing of no value: non vale una fava.^[12][2]
6. (vulgar) The glans; by extension, the penis.^[6][15][1]
7. (regional, Tuscany, figurative) A very stupid person, also as an insult.^[15]

Word family

• favata
• favino
• favagello
• faverella
• favismo
• favetta
• favaio
• favaiola
• faveto
• favina
• infavato

Related words

• Latin faba
• French fève

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 c d 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 e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
10. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ 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
16. ^ Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
17. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse