fessura

Forms

fessura f (plural fessure)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian fissura, Old Italian fesura and the northern Old Italian fexura.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fissūra (“cleft, fissure”).^[4][5][6][1] REW lists it as the Italian outcome of the Latin word.^[7] The GDLI calls it a learned word.^[3] DELI and Nocentini treat it beside fesso, the participle of fendere.^[4][5]

The Latin noun is formed from findō (“to split, cleave”), past participle fissus, with the suffix -ūra.^[8][1][9] De Vaan traces findō to Proto-Italic *find- and to a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *bʰi-n-d- (“to cleave”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Florentine chronicle of the late 13th century, which tells that in a great drought in France smoke and fire came out “through the cracks of the earth” (per le fessure della terra).^[2][3][4] The sense was “a long, narrow opening, a crack”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Inferno Dante gives the statue of the Old Man of Crete a crack that drips tears (d’una fessura che lagrime goccia), and calls the ditches of Malebolge fessure.^[3][11][6] Old Italian also used the word for the cell of a honeycomb, a narrow passage, a chap or wound in the skin, the lines of the hand and the cut made for grafting.^[2] Medical writers spoke of the fessura de' labbri, cracked lips.^[11] The senses of a chap in the skin and of a pit are now obsolete.^[12][6]

Galileo uses fessure for slits cut in an iron plate to look through.^[11] Later technical uses include the alpinist's crack in a rock face too narrow for the body, the fissures of geology, the narrow openings of anatomy and the slot antenna (antenna a fessura) of radio engineering.^[9][6][13]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – A Florentine chronicle has fessure “cracks” in the ground.^[2][4]
• c. 1306–1309 – Dante uses the word in the Inferno.^[3][11]
• 14th century – Boccaccio has light seen through the cracks of a door.^[3]
• 18th century – The diminutive fessurella is recorded.^[14]
• 19th century – Fessurina and fessurino are recorded.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A crack, slit or crevice: a long, narrow opening in a solid body, a wall, a door: dalle fessure delle imposte passava il vento.^{[6][13][15][9]}
2. A narrow gap of a door or window left ajar.^[12][15]
3. A slot, as for a coin.^[1]
4. (mountaineering) A vertical or oblique crack in rock, too narrow for a climber to enter.^[6][13][9]
5. (geology) A narrow fissure in a rock, open or filled with debris or minerals.^[6]
6. (anatomy) A narrow, elongated natural opening or groove: fessura palpebrale, fessura orbitale.^[13][12][9]
7. (medicine) A shallow ulcer: fessura anale.^[13][6]
8. (obsolete) A chap or crack in the skin; a pit.^[12][6]

Word family

• fessurarsi
• fessurazione
• fessurina
• fessuretta
• fessurino

Related words

• fesso
• fissione
• fendere
• fenditura
• Latin fissura

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 c d e f Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 5, 878
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 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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
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 d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1626
15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse