focolare

Forms

focolare m (plural focolari)^[1] The Old Italian forms include focholare, Old Italian focolaro, Old Italian fucolare and the northern Old Italian fogolar.^[2] The older literary language also had fuocolare, and the dialects have fogolaro.^[3] The Venetian forms are fogolèr and Venetian foghèr.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin foculāre, the neuter of a Late Latin adjective used as a noun, formed from foculus (“small stove”), the diminutive of focus (“hearth”).^[5][6][1][7] In Classical Latin the noun itself meant the hearth, and only later came to mean the fire.^[5] DEI and the GDLI find the Late Latin word in the Vitae Patrum, and the GDLI sees a crossing with focārius.^[8][3] Medieval Latin has foculare at Rieti in 757, already in the sense “household”, and fogalarium at Piacenza in the 13th century.^[8][3]

Meyer-Lübke found the form hard to explain and suggested a reshaping of Vulgar Latin *focāre under the influence of its plural.^[9] Related formations are Friulian fogolar and Venetian fogolaro, while the Latin adjective focāris (“of the hearth”) gave French foyer, Spanish hogar, Catalan fogar and Romanian focar.^[9][4]

The origin of the Latin noun is uncertain.^[7][1] Some connect it with Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to shine”), others, following Hamp, with Proto-Indo-European *dʰegʷʰ- (“to burn”).^[1][7] De Vaan finds Hamp's derivation chronologically difficult, and a link with Latin fax (“torch”) formally impossible.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a document from Prato of 1275.^[2] In the old texts the word is the stone base under the chimney where the fire is lit, and also the household as a unit of taxation.^[2] DELI's earliest dated sense is “home, family”, in the chronicle of Malispini in the 13th century, before the hearth itself in Cavalca, who died in 1342.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Cavalca says of the glutton that for him the kitchen is the church and lo focolare è l’altare (“the hearth is the altar”).^[3] In the Decameron an old woman asks what women are good for once old, se non da guardar la cenere intorno al focolare (“but to watch the ashes round the hearth”).^[10] Giovanni Villani counts a tax of 26 denari per focolare, for each household, and a Tuscan proverb says that at another's hearth one either gets no warmth or gets burnt.^[10]

From the 19th century the word also named a centre from which ideas or movements spread (Giusti, before 1850) and the part of a furnace or boiler where the fuel burns (1869).^[5] In the figurative sense of a centre, and especially of the seat of a disease, focolaio has largely taken its place.^[4][8] The phrase angelo del focolare names the mother, or the woman of the house.^[11] The Catholic movement of the Focolari takes its name from it.^[12]

Timeline

• 757 – Medieval Latin foculare “household” is recorded at Rieti.^[8]
• 1275 – First Italian record, in a document from Prato.^[2]
• 13th century – Malispini uses the word for “home, family”.^[5]
• Before 1342 – Cavalca uses it for the hearth.^[5]
• Before 1850 – Giusti uses it for a centre from which ideas spread.^[5]
• 1869 – Tommaseo–Bellini records the sense “combustion chamber”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The hearth: the floor of stone or brick at the base of a chimney on which the fire is lit, and by extension the fireplace itself: I nonni passavano la sera accanto al focolare.^[13][14][12]
2. (figurative) Home and family, the household as the seat of affection: il focolare domestico.^[13][15][14]
3. (technology) The firebox: the part of a furnace, boiler or engine where the fuel burns.^[13][15][12]
4. (geology) In focolare sismico, the hypocentre of an earthquake, and in focolare vulcanico, the deep part of a volcano that holds the magma.^[15][12]
5. (law) A community for minors that partly takes the place of the family without separating them from it completely.^[13][15][14]
6. (religion) A community of consecrated lay people of the Focolare movement, whose rule is mutual charity.^[13][15][16]

Word family

• focolarino

Related words

• fuoco
• focolaio
• Latin focus
• French foyer

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6, 90
4. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 450
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1674
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ 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
16. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse