fuscello

Forms

fuscello m (plural fuscelli)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *fusticellus (“little stick”), a diminutive of Latin fūstis (“stick, club”), as Pieri proposed.^[2][3][4][1] Devoto–Oli calls it a double diminutive.^[5] Nocentini explains the shortening by the loss of the syllable before the stress, as in fancello and fastello.^[3] REW glosses the Vulgar Latin word “small spindle” and gives Romanian fustel (“rung”) beside it.^[6][7]

Sabatini–Coletti calls the etymology disputed and the diminutive only probable.^[8] DEI and the GDLI start from Late Latin *fuscellus, which they explain as a blend of fūsus (“spindle”) with Vulgar Latin *arbuscellus (“small tree”), and compare Old French fuisel (“spindle”).^[9][10] REW too takes fuisel from a form without ⟨-ti-⟩.^[6] Salvioni tried to link the word with friscello “flour dust”, from Vulgar Latin *floscellus.^[11]

Latin fūstis is of disputed origin: de Vaan links it with -fūtō (“to strike”).^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is Pegolotti's Pratica, a Florentine text of the first half of the 14th century, with the sense of a long, thin twig or splinter of wood or straw.^[13] DELI dates the sense “thin twig of dry wood” to Boccaccio in 1353.^[2] In the Decameron a man is told that he curses God for every straw that gets between his feet: per ogni fuscello di paglia che vi si volge tra' piedi.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its sense of a short, thin dry twig or a piece of straw.^[4][5] From it come “a mere nothing” and, figuratively, a very thin person: magro come un fuscello.^[4][15]

The Gospel saying about the mote and the beam (Matthew 7:3, Luke 6:41) is told with fuscello: to see the twig in another's eye and not the beam in one's own is to criticise others' faults and ignore one's own.^[5][16] Fare di ogni fuscello una trave means to exaggerate.^[4][17] Sacchetti has cercar col fuscellino, and Tommaseo explains cercare col fuscello as looking for trouble through rashness.^[11][14] In Tuscany fuscellini were the strokes small children traced in their exercise books, so essere ai fuscellini meant to be at the very beginning.^[17]

Timeline

• First half of the 14th century – Pegolotti's Pratica uses the word.^[13]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses fuscello for a thin dry twig.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thin, short dry twig, or a straw.^[4][5][8][1]
2. (by extension) A trifle, something of no account.^[4]
3. (figurative) A very thin person: dopo la malattia è diventato un fuscello.^[4][5][16]

Word family

• fuscellino

Related words

• fusto
• fusta
• Latin fūstis

Usage notes

A separate fuscello, now obsolete, is a variant of friscello, the fine flour dust that settles on the walls of mills; the GDLI quotes Cellini, and it derives the word from Latin *floscellus, a diminutive of flōs “flower”.^[10][17][4] Fuscellino is the usual diminutive.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1739
10. ^ 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, 503
11. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 473
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
14. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ 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)