frumento

Forms

frumento m (plural frumenti, augmentative frumentóne)^[1] Old Italian forms include formento, fromento, furmento, frumentu and forment.^[2] Fromento and formento survive as archaic and regional Tuscan forms.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frūmentum (“grain, cereals”).^[5][6][7][1] The GDLI calls it a learned word and explains the old forms with ⟨or⟩ by metathesis,^[8] while Sabatini and Coletti put the ⟨o⟩ of fromento down to a weakening of the unstressed ⟨u⟩.^[9] The derivative frumentario did come by the learned route.^[5]

The Latin word is continued in French froment, Occitan fromen, Asturian furmento and Old Spanish hormiento, in all of them meaning “wheat”.^[6][10] In Latin it named all cereals with ears.^[11] Romance narrowed it to wheat, displacing trīticum.^[11]

frūmentum is formed from frūx (“fruit, produce”) with the suffix -mentum, from an older *frūgmentom.^[12][1][13] It belongs with fruor (“to enjoy, use”),^[5][6] from Proto-Italic *frūg- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHg- (“to use”), the source also of Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌿𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 (brukjan) and Old English brūcan; de Vaan notes that the restriction to Germanic and Italic may cast doubt on a Proto-Indo-European origin.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Veronese document of about 1205, in the sense “grain”.^[5] The TLIO's first quotation is from the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur super natura feminarum.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian frumento named the cereal grown and traded for human food, and it appears in proverbs.^[2] Frumento romano was a kind of wheat also called orzo romano.^[2] In figurative passages the word stood for bread and food, set against the tares (loglio), and in the plural it meant all cereals, cut or standing.^[2] Dante in the Convivio apologises for serving pane di biado e non di frumento, bread of coarse grain and not of wheat.^[8]

Frumentario “of wheat” is in Pietro Bembo before 1547, and frumentone “maize” in Girolamo Ruscelli before 1566, named for its large grains and tall plant.^[5] In everyday Italian the plant and its grain are usually called grano.^[8][14] Ido and Interlingua took frumento as their word.^[1]

Timeline

• About 1205 – A Veronese document has the word.^[5]
• Before 1292 – First record according to Zingarelli.^[15]
• Before 1547 – Pietro Bembo uses frumentario.^[5]
• Before 1566 – Girolamo Ruscelli uses frumentone “maize”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) wheat, the cereal plants of the genus Triticum; grano.^[7][3][4][1]
2. The grain of wheat, from which flour for bread and pasta is made: un sacco di frumento.^[7][3][4]
3. (especially in the plural) Cereals in general, granaglie.^[7][16]

Word family

• frumentario
• frumentone
• frumentare
• frumentazione
• formentino
• frumentaceo

Related words

• fruire
• frutto
• Latin frumentum
• French froment

Usage notes

Frumento is the more technical word.^[8][14] Grano is the common name for both the plant and the grain.^[8][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
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. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
9. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1725
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli