filugello

Forms

filugello m (plural filugelli)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian filogello, filosello and filusello.^[2] Older and dialect forms listed in the GDLI are firugello, fulisello and follisello.^[3] Prati records Lucchese and older firugello and frugello.^[4]

Etymology

It is a northern word: borrowed from Lombard filosèll (“floss silk”), the Lombard and Milanese word for silk waste, made Tuscan.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} The Lombard word continues Vulgar Latin *follicellus (“small bag”), a diminutive of follis (“leather bag; bladder”).^{[5][6][10][11]} DEI and GRADIT make it a diminutive of folliculus (“small bag, husk”), itself from the same noun.^[12][8][13] The word was drawn towards filo “thread” by folk etymology.^[5][6][14]

The first meaning was “cocoon”, the little bag the silkworm spins, and the senses “silk waste” and “silkworm” grew out of it.^[5] Prati compares the cocoon to a little leather purse.^[4] Nocentini sees the original vowels in Emilian folzèl and explains the ⟨i⟩ of the Lombard form by the pull of the word for thread.^[6] Devoto explains the ⟨g⟩ as the Tuscan correction of the Lombard voiced ⟨s⟩.^[9]

The same Latin form gave Aromanian folce (“small bellows”), Old French foucel and Languedocien fousel.^[11][15] French filoselle (“floss silk”) (1564) is a borrowing from Italian.^[12][6][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Statute of the Gabella of Siena of 1301–1303, where the word means silk to be spun, silk waste.^[2][5] The form filogello for a cocoon is in the Constitution of Siena of 1309–1310.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word moved from the silk itself to the cocoon, recorded as filugello before 1374 in Giovanni da Uzzano, and then to the creature that spins it, the silkworm, first in Michelangelo Tanaglia before 1512.^[5] Tanaglia's poem on farming tells how e' filugegli are gathered after their moult to spin on broom and vine shoots, and Segneri compares the risen just to the filugello that turns from a worm into a butterfly.^[3][16] A Florentine ban forbade the export of filugelli e bozzoli “silkworms and cocoons”.^[16]

Prati notes that the word is little used in Tuscany, where baco da seta is the common term.^[4] Around 1916 it was also slang for a shirker who avoided the front.^[12]

Timeline

• 1301–1303 – The Statute of the Gabella of Siena uses the word for silk waste.^[5][2]
• 1309–1310 – Filogello “cocoon” is recorded in the Constitution of Siena.^[5]
• Before 1374 – Giovanni da Uzzano uses filugello for the cocoon.^[5]
• Before 1512 – Michelangelo Tanaglia uses it for the silkworm.^[5][8]
• 1519 – The northern form filesello is recorded at Vicenza.^[12]
• 1564 – French filoselle is recorded.^[12]
• About 1916 – Filugello is used for a shirker.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) The silkworm, the same as baco da seta.^{[8][7][10][14]}
2. (obsolete) A silkworm's cocoon; silk spun from cocoons, floss silk.^[12][5][16]

Related words

• filo
• folle
• follicolo
• Latin follis
• French filoselle

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 443
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1645
13. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
16. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET