forca

Forms

forca f (plural forche)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian furca, Old Italian forcha, Old Italian forke and Old Italian folca.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin furca (“fork; forked prop; gallows”).^[3][4][5][1] The word is found throughout Romance: French fourche, Occitan forca, Catalan forca, Spanish horca, Portuguese forca, Sardinian furca and Romanian furcă.^[4][6][7] The Latin diminutives furcilla and furcula gave Italian forcella and forcola.^[3][4]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain: Nocentini and Devoto find no clear relatives.^[4][8][9] The etymologies proposed so far start from a root in PIE /ǵʰ/, which normally gives Latin ⟨h⟩, and they would need the word to come from another Italic dialect; de Vaan calls this an emergency solution.^[9] Wiktionary connects the sense “fork” with Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰerk- (“fork”), and compares Lithuanian žer̃gti (“to spread the legs”), while the senses “pole, prop” might rather go with Proto-Germanic *furkaz (“stake, pole”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Guido Faba's Parlamenti, written at Bologna about 1243.^[2] The oldest dated sense is the gallows, and with it anything shaped like a fork, both from the 13th century; the farm tool is dated only from before 1406, in Buti.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

Isidore of Seville already noted that the gallows was popularly called furca (patibulum enim vulgo furca dicitur).^[10] In Old Italian the gallows dominates: morte delle forche was death by hanging, a mark of infamy; a figliuolo delle forche was a rogue;^[2] degno delle forche meant deserving the rope; and to save someone dalle forche was to save his life.^[2] The word also named an instrument of torture that pressed down the neck and shoulders, and the farmer's fork, used at need as a weapon and given to devils in visions of hell.^[2] Dante used it for the forked, venomous tail of Geryon (la venenosa forca).^[11][12]

From the fork came the diminutive forchetta, the table fork, before 1400, and the augmentative forcone before 1306.^[3] In Tuscany forca became a cheeky, unruly boy, recorded at Pistoia in 1607, and fare forca meant to play truant; an older far le forche meant to feign ignorance or to fawn.^[13][14][15] A long pronged pole was a weapon from the 15th to the 17th century, and in the 20th century forca named a narrow mountain pass, a sense alive in place names such as Forca Canapine.^[5][3][14]

Timeline

• c. 1243 – Forca is first recorded, in Guido Faba's Parlamenti (Bologna).^[2]
• 13th century – The gallows and anything fork-shaped are named forca in Malispini.^[3]
• Before 1306 – Forcone and forcuto appear in Iacopone.^[3]
• c. 1350 – Forcella appears in the Italian Crescenzi.^[3]
• Before 1400 – Forchetta “table fork” appears in Franco Sacchetti.^[3]
• Before 1406 – The farm tool is recorded, in Buti.^[3]
• 1607 – Forca “rascal” is recorded at Pistoia.^[13]
• 1934 – Forca “pass between two mountains” is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pitchfork: a farm tool with a long wooden handle and two or more iron prongs, used to move hay, straw or manure: Caricò il fieno sul carro con la forca.^[5][14][16]
2. A gallows: two upright posts joined by a crossbeam from which the noose hangs; also the penalty of hanging: Il brigante finì sulla forca.^[5][14][16]
3. (historical) A long pole with prongs, used as a weapon from the 15th to the 17th century, especially in sieges.^[5][14]
4. Anything shaped like a fork, such as a forked pole holding up a washing line.^[16][17][18]
5. (geography) A narrow mountain pass between sharp peaks, a sense now kept mainly in place names.^[5][14][15]
6. (zoology) The forked appendage at the end of the abdomen of crustaceans and springtails.^[14][17][11]
7. (colloquial, Tuscan) An unruly, cheeky boy.^[5][14][16]

Word family

• forchetta
• forcone
• forcina
• forcata
• forcuto
• inforcare
• biforcare
• forcaiolo
• forchetto

Related words

• forcella
• forcola
• Latin furca
• French fourche

Usage notes

Set phrases include pendaglio da forca and avanzo di forca “gallows bird, scoundrel”, Tuscan fare forca “to play truant”, and forche caudine, after the yoke under which the Romans defeated by the Samnites had to pass, for a humiliating ordeal.^[5][16][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 k 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
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. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1685
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
18. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli