fiele

Forms

fiele m (plural fieli)^[1] Old Italian also had fele and felle, which survive in poetry, and was used as a masculine or feminine noun.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fel (“bile, gall”), a neuter noun.^[5][6][1] DELI and Zingarelli derive the Italian form from the Latin ablative, GRADIT from a variant Vulgar Latin *fellem, and Wiktionary from a Vulgar Latin *felem that had become masculine or feminine, like *melem (“honey”).^[7][8][9][1] Sabatini–Coletti starts from the nominative and explains ⟨ie⟩ as the usual Tuscan diphthong of a stressed open /ɛ/ in an open syllable.^[4] The variants fele and felle are Latinate.^[4] DEI notes that the word prevailed over bīlis.^[10]

The word is found across Romance: French fiel, Occitan fel, Catalan fel, Spanish hiel, Portuguese fel, Sardinian fele and Romanian fiere.^[5][11] In many of these it is feminine.^[11]

The Latin noun has clear cognates in Ancient Greek χολή (kholḗ, “bile”) and χόλος (khólos, “gall, wrath”) and in Old High German galla.^[5][12][13] Nocentini traces them to a PIE root Proto-Indo-European *ghel- or *gʷhel- “yellow-green”, but de Vaan finds the root uncertain: from *ǵʰelH- (“yellow”) the Latin ⟨f⟩ would have to be dialectal, while a root *bʰl(H)- would tie it to flāvus (“yellow”).^[5][12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Andrea da Grosseto's translation of 1268, and Nocentini and GRADIT date the word to about 1274.^[2][5][9] DELI's first sense is “bile”, in Brunetto Latini before 1294; the TLIO's first sense is the bitter yellowish fluid of the liver, in Hippocratic medicine one of the four humours, whose excess causes aggression and anger.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word also named the bitter drink given to Christ on the cross, as in Dante's “vinegar and gall” (l’aceto e ’l fele).^[2][14] It then came to mean poison, what is hard to accept, and what is wicked.^[2] Dante also uses it for bitterness and rancour, before 1321.^[7] Old Italian had the phrase senza fiele for a gentle, guileless person, and fiele di terra for the plant centaury.^[2]

Today it is the more popular synonym of bile, used especially of animals, and figuratively means bitterness or hidden rancour.^[3][9] A proverb says that a little gall makes much honey bitter.^[3]

Timeline

• 1268 – Andrea da Grosseto has the earliest record.^[2]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it for “bile”.^[7]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for “bitterness, rancour”.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. bile, gall, especially of animals.^{[9][15][3][4]}
2. (figurative) bitterness, sorrow.^[9][3][16]
3. (figurative) rancour, hatred, spite: Nella sua lettera c'era molto fiele.^{[9][15][4][8]}
4. (poetic) The power to do harm; venom.^[9][3]

Related words

• collera
• Latin fel
• French fiel

Usage notes

Fixed phrases: amaro come il fiele, extremely bitter;^{[8][17][3][16]} intingere la penna nel fiele, to write with spite;^{[8][17][3][16]} non aver fiele, of a mild person who bears no grudge.^{[8][17][3][16]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 c d e f g h i Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
7. ^ a b c d e 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 d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1635
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana