frassino

Forms

frassino m (plural frassini)^[1] Old and regional forms include Old Italian frassine, Old Italian frasseno, Old Italian frassen and Old Italian fraxenu.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fraxinus (“ash tree”).^[4][5][6][1] The word is found across the Romance languages: French frêne, Occitan fraise, Catalan freixe, Spanish fresno, Portuguese freixo and Romanian frasin.^[5][7][8] A shortened form, Late Latin fraxus, used by Palladius, survives in the South, in Sardinian frassu and in Aragonese frajo, and passed into Albanian frashër.^[3][7]

DELI and Zingarelli call the Latin word of uncertain origin, and DEI thinks it may be a Mediterranean relic, akin to farnus.^[4][9][3] The usual etymology connects it with the Indo-European word for the birch, Proto-Indo-European *bʰerHǵos.^[10][1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *frakse/ino- and accepts Schrijver's account: the root noun “birch” came to mean “ash”, took on the s-stem of the old word for the ash seen in ornus, and was extended with the suffix of alnus and quernus.^[10] The cognates keep the sense “birch”: Sanskrit भूर्ज (bhūrjá, “a kind of birch”), Lithuanian béržas, Russian берёза (berjóza) and Old High German birihha.^[10][1] Nocentini notes that popular plant names often pass to another species as the habitat changes.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Restoro d'Arezzo in 1282, for the tall tree with a straight trunk: Se noi vorremo lo frassino, addomanderemlo nelle selve, “if we want the ash, we shall look for it in the woods”.^[4][2][11]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word for the wood as well as the tree.^[2] Boccaccio describes groves of oak and ash in the Decameron, and the Italian Crescenzi says the ash delights in rich, damp woods.^[11] The collective frassineto, from Late Latin fraxinetum, appears at the beginning of the 14th century.^[5]

Tommaseo prized the wood, white, hard and flexible, for carriage shafts, wheel spokes and whip handles, and named the manna ash among the Italian species.^[12] Modern botany distinguishes the common ash, the manna ash or orniello (frassino da manna) and the narrow-leaved ash (frassino meridionale).^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1282 – Restoro d'Arezzo uses frassino.^[4][2]
• Early 14th century – Frassineto appears in Italian.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. ash, the common or European ash (Fraxinus excelsior), a tall tree of the olive family with pinnate leaves and winged fruits.^{[6][14][15][1]}
2. Any tree of the genus Fraxinus, such as the frassino da manna or orniello.^{[6][14][9][1]}
3. The light, strong, flexible wood of these trees, used in joinery: un tavolo di frassino.^{[6][15][9][1]}
4. (botany) With a capital, Frassino: the genus itself.^[6][15]

Word family

• frassineto
• frassinella

Related words

• orniello
• Latin fraxinus
• French frêne

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1709
4. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6, 305
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
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 c 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 c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse