fiacco

Forms

fiacco (feminine fiacca, masculine plural fiacchi, feminine plural fiacche)^[1] Old Italian forms include fyaccho and the plural Old Italian fyacchi.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin flaccus (“drooping, floppy”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin adjective was used of ears, and as a family name it was borne among others by the poet Horace.^[6][7]

The same Latin word gave Old French flac, later French flasque, and Portuguese fraco and Sicilian fraccu.^[8][4][1] Nocentini considers Spanish flaco a learned borrowing.^[4] Meyer-Lübke explains fioco “hoarse, faint” as a cross of the Latin adjective with raucus (“hoarse”).^[8]

De Vaan places the Latin word among the Latin adjectives with an expressive double consonant, and finds no etymology for it.^[9] He rejects the proposals that start from an older ⟨ml-⟩.^[9] Nocentini holds the opposite view: he derives ⟨fl-⟩ from ⟨ml-⟩ and compares Ancient Greek μαλακός (malakós, “soft”) and Old Irish mláith (“tender”), with the root of mollis (“soft”).^[4] Wiktionary also mentions an imitative origin or a root shared with Polish błahy and Lithuanian blogas.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Rime of Nicolò de' Rossi, written in a mixed Tuscan and Venetian in the first half of the 14th century, of a person lacking bodily or moral strength.^[2] DELI dates the word only from Bembo in 1505, because the passage of Boccaccio quoted in the historical dictionaries is found only in late manuscripts and spurious editions.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the word for a limp banner.^[2] Ariosto has a horse that grows fiacco after a few days without hay or oats.^[7] From the 16th century the word was used of weak or ineffective speech and writing: Caro complains of getting only words, e fiacche.^[7][10] The Zingarelli records mercato fiacco for a slow stock market.^[11]

The noun fiacca “weariness, sluggishness” is recorded from 1841, though the augmentative fiaccona appears in Pananti some decades before.^[3] Battere la fiacca, “to shirk effort”, is first recorded in 1923 and was spread from the army as Piedmontese bati la fiaca.^[3] L. Renzi explains it from the Piedmontese use of bati as a general verb, or as a soldiers' joke on drum calls such as battere la diana, “to beat reveille”.^[3] The verb fiaccare first meant “to break by bending” in the early 13th century and took the sense “to weaken” with Dante.^[3]

Timeline

• First half of the 14th century – Nicolò de' Rossi uses fiacco in his Rime.^[2]
• 1344 – The Zingarelli's date for the first record.^[11]
• 1505 – Bembo uses fiacco and fiacchezza.^[3]
• 1598 – Infiacchire “to weaken” is recorded.^[4]
• 1808–1825 – Fiaccona appears in Pananti.^[3]
• 1841 – The noun fiacca is recorded by Tommaseo.^[3]
• 1923 – Battere la fiacca appears in Panzini's dictionary.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. tired, weak, lacking physical strength or energy: Dopo la febbre mi sento ancora fiacco.^[5][12][13]
2. (figurative) Lacking vigour or effectiveness; listless or dull (of a person, a government, a speech or a style).^{[5][12][13][14]}
3. (finance) Of a market: sluggish, with little trading: mercato fiacco.^[11]

Word family

• fiacca
• fiaccare
• fiacchezza
• infiacchire
• affiacchire
• fiaccaggine
• fiaccamente
• fiaccone

Related words

• fioco
• Latin flaccus

Usage notes

An old noun fiacco, recorded before 1375 in Boccaccio, means “ruin, slaughter” and, in the phrase un fiacco di legnate, “a great many blows”;^{[5][2][12][14][15]} GRADIT and the TLIO derive it from fiaccare, while Devoto–Oli, the Treccani and the GDLI derive it from northern fracco, crossed with fiaccare according to Devoto–Oli.^{[5][2][12][14][15]} Fare fiacco meant “to make havoc”.^[11][15] The adverb is fiaccamente and the diminutives fiacchetto and fiaccuccio.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 5, 899
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 5, 900