finocchio

Forms

finocchio m (plural finocchi)^[1] Old Italian forms include fenocchio, Old Italian fenochio, Old Italian finochio and northern Old Italian fenoio.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin fēnuculum (“fennel”), a variant of Latin fēniculum, the diminutive of fēnum (“hay”).^[3][4][1][5] DELI and Devoto–Oli start from a spoken Vulgar Latin *fenuculum, and Wiktionary notes that it was contracted to *fenuclum.^[3][6][1] Devoto dates the form with ⟨u⟩ to the 3rd century.^[7]

The same Latin word gave French fenouil, from which the English word fennel comes, and Occitan fenolh, Catalan fenoll, Spanish hinojo and Portuguese funcho;^[4][8] German took it from Romance as Fenchel.^[4][8]

The Latin word for hay is also spelled faenum, and its origin depends on which spelling is older.^[9] If the spelling with ⟨ē⟩ is original, it can be the “yield” of Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to suckle; to bring forth”); if the one with ⟨ae⟩ is, as the TLL and Leumann assume, the etymology is unknown.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record of the plant name is in the poems of Onesto da Bologna, in the 13th century; the TLIO's first is the pseudo-Jacopone Proverbia, in the dialect of the Abruzzi.^[3][2] Old Italian used the plant for its seeds and leaf sheaths and believed it cured diseases of the eyes.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Tesoro of Brunetto Latini says that snakes eat fennel to see clearly, and fennel water, made by boiling the plant, was used as a medicine.^[10][2] A Florentine salami flavoured with fennel seed, finocchiona, is recorded in 1875.^[3] Phrases such as vender finocchio “to fool someone” go with it, and infinocchiare “to hoodwink” is from the first half of the 15th century;^[3][4] Nocentini explains it from infinocchiare “to season with fennel”, much used in Tuscany for roasts.^[3][4] An archaic sense was “fool, bungler”.^[11][6][1]

The use of finocchio as an offensive word for a gay man is first recorded in 1863, in Fanfani's dictionary of Tuscan usage, which says it was said in Florence of a man given to sodomy.^[3][12] A late-13th-century instance in Meo de' Tolomei has been claimed, but DELI doubts it because the passage is obscure and the next record comes nearly six centuries later; the TLIO marks the sense there as uncertain.^[3][2] The word was Florentine slang: Panzini in 1905 objected to Petrocchi's recording it as Italian, and it entered the national language only with neorealist literature.^[3][11]

DELI, GRADIT and Nocentini agree that the slang word is the plant name, but none finds the link clear.^[3][12][4] Panzini in 1923 explained it by the plant being “all hole”.^[3] Menarini (1963) pointed to Finocchio, a mask of the popular theatre, a scheming go-between with affected, effeminate manners.^[3] DELI itself suggests the saying il finocchio fra le mele (fennel among the apples), which Pescetti recorded in 1629 for two things that go well together, since fennel and apples were served at the end of a meal, a phrase open to a crude reading;^[3] Varchi also used finocchio for the male organ.^[3] Nocentini and Devoto–Oli start from the phrase fare il finocchio “to act effeminately”, like Tuscan fare i fichi, the syllable fi- imitating an affected grimace.^[4][6] Wiktionary instead derives it from the archaic sense “worthless person”.^[1]

English borrowed the word as finocchio (1723).^[13][1] It also passed into Albanian and Greek.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – Onesto da Bologna uses the plant name.^[3]
• First half of the 15th century – Infinocchiare is recorded.^[4]
• 1629 – Pescetti records the saying il finocchio fra le mele.^[3]
• 1723 – English finocchio is first recorded.^[13]
• 1728 – Finocchiella is recorded.^[4]
• 1863 – Fanfani records the Florentine slang sense “homosexual man”.^[3][12]
• 1875 – Finocchiona appears in Rigutini and Fanfani.^[3]
• 1905 – Panzini objects to the slang sense being treated as Italian.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) fennel, a perennial aromatic plant of the carrot family (Foeniculum vulgare) with feathery leaves and yellow flowers.^{[12][6][11][1]}
2. The swollen leaf base of the cultivated plant, eaten as a vegetable: finocchi gratinati al forno.^[12][6][14]
3. Fennel seeds, used to flavour food: salame al finocchio.^[12][14]
4. The name of several other plants of the same family, as finocchio marino (samphire).^[6][14]
5. (offensive, slang) A gay man.^{[12][6][15][1]}
6. (archaic) A fool, a bungler.^{[12][11][6][1]}

Word family

• finocchiona
• infinocchiare
• finocchiella
• finocchietto
• finocchiaccio
• finocchino
• finocchione
• finocchiata

Related words

• fieno
• Latin feniculum
• French fenouil

Usage notes

In everyday use one distinguishes a rounder, tender finocchio maschio, eaten raw, from a flatter finocchio femmina, preferred for cooking.^[5] As a proper name, Finocchio was a zanni of the commedia dell'arte.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 g h i j k l m n o p q r s 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 f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 184
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 e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse