feccia

Forms

feccia f (plural fecce)^[1] Older forms include Old Italian feça, Old Italian feza, Old Italian fecia and Old Italian fieccia.^[2] The singular Old Italian fecce is also old.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *faecea, the feminine of the adjective Latin faeceus used as a noun, from faex (“dregs, sediment of wine or oil”).^[5][6][7][8] The form is recorded as Late Latin faecea in the Latin translation of Oribasius.^[4][9][1] De Vaan finds no etymology for faex.^[10] DELI and Nocentini call it pre-Indo-European, a word of the substrate like most of the vocabulary of wine, and Battisti–Alessio a Mediterranean relic;^[5][6][4][1] Wiktionary also separates it from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrā́ks (“dregs”).^[5][6][4][1]

The Vulgar Latin form gave Sicilian, Calabrian and Apulian forms of the same shape, and Engadine feca.^[11] Faex itself survives elsewhere: Sardinian fege, Spanish hez and Portuguese fez.^[11][12] French has no descendant of either, and uses French lie instead.^[12] The Italian ⟨cc⟩ is the normal doubling of /kj/.^[7] Forms with ⟨ie⟩, such as fieccia, show a blend with floces (“dregs of wine”).^[11][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Tuscan translation of Albertano by Andrea da Grosseto, dated 1268, where the word means a waste product.^[2] DELI first finds it in Bono Giamboni, who died in 1292, in the sense “excrement”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The wine-making sense, the muddy deposit that settles in casks as the wine clears, is dated by DELI to the translation of Crescenzi's treatise on agriculture, around 1350.^[5] In the Middle Ages the word also named the tartar taken from that deposit, used in chemistry.^[2] The figurative sense, the lowest and vilest part of a society, appears in Domenico Cavalca, who died in 1342.^[5] Boccaccio speaks of the feccia del popolazzo di Roma.^[3]

Tuscan proverbs used the word: beva la feccia chi ha bevuto il vino, let whoever had the pleasure also take the consequences.^[13] The phrase bere il calice fino alla feccia means to suffer something painful to the very end.^[14][15] Modern technical language uses feccia for any muddy industrial residue and for the fouling left in the barrel of a firearm.^[14][16] English borrowed the word as fechia in 1704.^[17]

Timeline

• 1268 – Andrea da Grosseto uses the word for a waste product.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for excrement.^[5]
• 1319 – Feza “wine tartar” is recorded in a document at Verona.^[4]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses it for the dregs of society.^[5]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses feccioso “full of dregs”.^[5]
• c. 1350 – The translation of Crescenzi uses it for the lees of wine.^[5]
• 1704 – English fechia is first recorded.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. (oenology) The lees, the reddish sludge that settles at the bottom of a wine cask as the wine clears.^[14][8][16]
2. Any thick deposit left by a liquid; dregs.^[18][19][15]
3. (industry) An insoluble muddy or encrusted by-product of an industrial process.^[14][8]
4. The residue of burnt powder left in the barrel of a firearm.^[14][16]
5. (figurative) The scum of society, its lowest and vilest part: la feccia del quartiere.^[14][8][19]
6. (literary, archaic, mostly plural) Faeces, excrement.^[14][8][15]

Word family

• feccioso
• fecciaia
• fecciume

Related words

• feci
• fecola
• defecare
• Latin faex

Usage notes

The plural is fecce.^[1][8] Bere il calice fino alla feccia is a fixed phrase for enduring a hardship to the end.^[14][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
4. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1611
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
9. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
10. ^ 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 Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
17. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
18. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
19. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse