gallinaccio

Forms

gallinaccio m (plural gallinacci)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gallīnāceus (“of poultry, of the hen”), from the accusative.^{[2][3][4][1][5][6]} The adjective is formed from Latin gallīna + -āceus, and the noun for “hen” was itself first an adjective, “of the cock”, from gallus (“cock”).^[7][1][2] The learned form of the same Latin word is gallinaceo, so the two are doublets.^[1]

Not every dictionary follows this chain.^[8][9] GRADIT and Treccani treat the noun as a formation from Italian gallina + -accio,^[8][9] and Prati saw it as a form of gallo reshaped after gallina.^[10] The Battaglia dictionary calls it a semi-learned word.^[11]

The name of the mushroom comes from the cock's crest: the cap, golden yellow and frilled at the edge, recalls a comb, as DELI shows from dialect names such as Niçard cresta da gal, and as the Tuscan names of the fungus.^[2][12] Zingarelli and Gabrielli instead compare it to the crest of a turkey and make it a second use of the bird's name.^[6][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Tuscan treatise on the care of birds of prey from the beginning of the 14th century, where the word names a domestic fowl of the hen kind, probably a young cock.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used gallinaccio for the cock itself, a sense the Tommaseo dictionary still records as distinct from the turkey, with a passage in which two gallinacci, perhaps rivals, fight a bloody duel.^[14][9] When the turkey reached Italy the name passed to the new bird: the Battaglia dictionary quotes Giambattista Marino on the wattles and combs of the gallinazzi and Zucchelli on the galli d'india, detti da noi gallinacci (“turkeys, which we call gallinacci”).^[11] Prati notes that in this sense the word was little used in Italian but common in Rome.^[10]

Writers used the turkey for pomposity and a red face: Carducci would rather be “a contented gallinaccio” if he could not be an eagle, and Baldini describes a man who “had gone red in the face like a gallinaccio”.^[11] In the phrase vecchio gallinaccio it means a shrewd old fox, or an old man who still plays the ladies' man.^[5][12][15]

The name of the yellow mushroom Cantharellus cibarius is recorded from 1798, in D'Alberti's dictionary.^[2][8] Prati describes it as an orange fungus, yellowish inside, with a cap shaped like a crest, called galletti in Rome.^[10]

Timeline

• Early 14th century – A Tuscan treatise on hawks has gallinaccio for a domestic fowl.^[4][3]
• 1612 – Zingarelli dates the noun for the turkey.^[6]
• Before 1625 – GRADIT's first record of the noun.^[8]
• 1798 – D'Alberti records gallinaccio as the name of a mushroom.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (popular, regional) The turkey, the domestic bird.^{[8][12][9][1]}
2. (obsolete) The domestic cock.^[9][14]
3. (figurative, jocular) In vecchio gallinaccio: a crafty person, an old fox, or an elderly man with pretensions to being a ladies' man.^[5][12][15]
4. (botany) The chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius), an edible yellow mushroom with a funnel-shaped cap, common in oak and chestnut woods,^[8][15] also called galletto, cantarello and finferlo: Abbiamo trovato un cesto di gallinacci sotto i castagni.^{[8][5][6][15]}
5. (botany) In gallinaccio spinoso: the hedgehog mushroom, better known as steccherino dorato.^[8][5][15]

Word family

• sgallinacciare

Related words

• gallina
• gallo
• gallinaceo
• tacchino
• Latin gallinaceus

Usage notes

GRADIT has a separate rare adjective gallinaccio, recorded before 1396, used in the sense of gallinaceo “of hens, gallinaceous”.^[8] The TLIO records this adjective in a Perugian statute of 1342,^[4] and old texts speak of uova gallinacce, hens' eggs, and of a gallo gallinaccio.^[14][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
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 c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
10. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 479
11. ^ 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, 558
12. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)